


Sa Dilim Ng Gabi

by Mozzarella



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Philippine Revolution, M/M, Philippine Revolution, Philippine history, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 00:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8644891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mozzarella/pseuds/Mozzarella
Summary: Antonio Eduardo y Karbonel was a genius, an engineer and writer, who sparked the fire of reform and revolution in the oppressive society of 19th century Philippines under Spanish rule. Esteban Rogero was a common man who, inspired by Antonio's ideals, rose to become one of the country's greatest heroes, the Captain of the revolution.As they heralded the dawn of a new day for their country, Tonyo and Teban exchanged letters, shared their souls, and fell in love. If they could have, they would have kept that love forever. But as we have learned from history, life is never kind to its greatest heroes.(Or: the Philippine Revolution AU starring Tony Stark as pseudo-Rizal and Steve Rogers as pseudo-Bonifacio, loosely based on Filipino historical figures and events. Written for the CapIronman Big Bang)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the quote below, which roughly translates to: 
> 
> “I die without seeing dawn's light shining on my country... You, who will see it, welcome it for me...don't forget those who fell in the dark of night."
> 
> Title itself translates to: In the Dark of Night
> 
> The story runs through an alternate universe version of Philippine history. You can read about the real life figures, Jose Rizal, and Andres Bonifacio, in their wikis, their lives are very interesting, and Rizal was a real life genius and Bonifacio was an actual artist by trade :) They did not, in fact, correspond through letters (that we know of) but Bonifacio was a big fan of Rizal and even had his picture hanging on the walls for inspiration during the revolution. They also spoke once or twice, iirc. Rizal did, however, correspond with a European man with some homoromantic subtext (the man, Ferdinand Blumentritt permanently nicknamed one of his daughters by what Rizal called her), so I kind of just took that detail and went to town with it here. 
> 
> Talk to me if you wanna know about more of this history, but for now, enjoy the story! 
> 
> FOOTNOTES ARE AT THE END OF THE STORY EXPLAINING UNFAMILIAR TERMS. Google translate also helps if ever :) 
> 
> Fantastic art by Marina! CHECK IT HERE! http://kaitovsheiji.tumblr.com/post/153538082928/hello-hello-people-of-this-verse-this-post-is

 

 

> _"Ako'y mamamatay na hindi man lamang nakita ang maningning na pagbubukang liwayway sa aking bayan. Kayong makakakita, batiin ninyo siya at huwag kalilimutan ang mga nalugmok sa dilim ng gabi."_
> 
> _-Elias, Noli Me Tangere_
> 
>  

 

_CHARACTERS:_

_Antonio “Tonyo” Eduardo y Karbonel = Tony Stark_

_Esteban “Teban” Rogero = Steve Rogers_

_Jaime “Bokoy” Bautista = Bucky Barnes_

_Benigno “Brujo” Bandera = Bruce Banner_

_Huliardo = Howard Stark_

_Nicolas “Kulas” Kalasag = Nick Fury_

_Natalya “Neneng” Romaño Kalasag = Natasha Romanov_

_Bartolomeo “Barton” Antonio Kalasag = Clint Barton_

_Jaime “Rody” Rodrigo = James Rhodes (Rhodey)_

_Virgenia “Pepay” = Pepper Potts_

_Gob. Hen. Tadeo Roces = Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross_

_Carolina de Vera = Carol Danvers_

_Margarita “Pegay” Cartera Rogero = Peggy Carter_

_Betina Roces = Betty Ross_

_Pedro Parquero = Peter Parker_

_Wade = Wade Wilson (haha)_

_Mattias (the lawyer) = Matt Murdock_

_Alejandro Piero = Alexander Pierce_

_Romualdo = Brock Rumlow_

**Chapter 1**

 

Teban had never known when to back down from a fight, not when he was a child and the other boys in their little barrio had called him bulilit,1 called him the tiniest of them with such derision that he'd bruised himself up trying to get at them with flying fists.

He didn't much change when he got older, taller but still much too thin, bulilit turning into patpat 2 when he graduated from little kid to half-grown stick of a man, but he'd figured out when to fight his battles, or when he had more of an advantage, childhood aggression giving way to a more tactical mind.

He didn't even need Bokoy to have his back half the time, not that that ever stopped the other from being there when he was needed, often simply looming tall and strong and chasing somebody away before they even thought of throwing another punch. The ones who didn't have the mind to walk away as was the wiser choice were treated to Koy's labour-thick arms throwing them over a fence or into the dirt without too much effort.

Teban appreciated Koy's presence in his life, the younger man having taken it upon himself to be his knight in threadbare shirts, for reasons Teban couldn't really fathom. When he'd asked, more than once over the course of years, Koy would always give him a different answer.

First, it was because Teban was the first to call him Bokoy, when his parents had insisted on calling him by his Christian name, Jaime, only because the name Juan Bautista 3 had already been taken by another, more prominent family closer to the city and Jaime was a perfectly good, holy name. Teban had called him Bokoy as a challenge, when the younger boy had laughed at him for being so combative when they were arguing over smooth, flat stones that shone like jewels down by the river.

Koy had been angry then, taking the name to be an insult against his Christian one, but their skirmishes turned into friendship and eventually, Teban surrendered to Koy's protective nature and Koy tolerated—in fact, outright enjoyed—Teban's need to pick fights with every single boy in the village.

Second, it was because Koy admired Teban's spirit, his resolve, and his intelligence. He'd listen to Teban read out books he'd borrowed or acquired in town, books about philosophies and, more appealingly, works of fiction that spoke of revolution, of revolts and freedom and the things that made Teban's eyes shine and voice steady in the reading.

Third, it was because he thought that one day, Teban would be greater than him or anyone, and that he'd like to be there by his side when that happened.

That one earned a snort and a laugh so hearty that Teban had doubled over coughing his lungs out while Koy smacked him on the back a little too hard to be helpful.

Esteban Rogero didn't see what Koy did—he was nobody special. He was a humble, respectable young man who was well off enough that he didn't need to resort to labour to support his family–not that he would have been able to do much, given his sickliness. He lived with his mother, father long gone but having left them some inheritance, left Teban a mestizo's look of pale hair and paler skin (some Dutch blood, his mother had said) and a soldier's ideal to strive for. With his mother, he made little crafts like ladies' fans and posters (he was a good hand at the finer arts, something his mother was sure would bring him some notoriety, enough to elevate himself and make a good living.

He considered Jaime “Bokoy” Bautista to be family as well, though they looked nothing alike—Teban being too thin, a little pale, not quite ugly but nothing close to attractive, and Koy being tall, lean but strong-built, handsome enough to turn heads with lovely black hair he grew just a little too long and soulful eyes that were a favoured subject in many of Teban's sketches.

Chita, the woman who sold him the best papers for fans (a woman who, by virtue of her male birth, was called the devil by passing frays, something which amused them both despite their faith in the church at large) once asked if he was in love with Koy, and Teban asked her if that was possible, if he felt nothing like a girl like she was. He knew of the many women like her, who were born male-looking, but chose to live as women, dress as women, and even titter over men the way the women in the village did. He found it brave, to be so when the frays were so unkind and the Church so unwelcoming, though when he said so, they would laugh at him and pat his head and tell him he was sweet.

"Can a man love another man, then?" he'd asked, and she'd said, "Used to be that a woman could want a good cock without wanting children out of it," in that brash way of hers, "so why shouldn't a man, who wouldn't get children out of it at all, have such desires? I have a cock myself, and I know I can take a good pounding, same as any hot-blooded dalaga.  4 "

Though that was not the question Teban had asked (and he'd turned a good shade of red at that, curse his light skin, sending the woman into fits of laughter that had her doubling over), he accepted the idea and its logic, the way he often did when something new (and wholly against the Church's insistences of virtue and godly rule) was presented to him.

She said something of books from overseas she would find him that would say it was, something about Greeks and men loving men, but that was a while back and Teban didn't press, not quite eager to find out the answer.

He learned much, still, from the books that she did get him—she was soft on him, and he was fierce in his defence of her whenever her virtues were challenged.

Teban had never felt the cruelties and injustices that plagued many, not on his own household and not on himself. He wasn't poor, he was pale enough and his hair light enough that he was mistaken for insulares5 from afar, until one got close and saw the purely Indio6 features he'd inherited from his mother.

He was not rich and not prominent, but he was privileged in his looks and in the opportunities afforded him by his education, so more often than not he spent his days fighting the battles of others, knowing that of his fellows he'd be the least likely to be sanctioned by the peninsula7res who made up the local parish. Even Bokoy, for all that he was the handsomest and most charming of Indio men, would have been hard pressed to win their favour, with his colouring.

"You are more educated than the average Indio," they said to him. "You are more refined," regardless of all the fights he got into and the dirt and grime he accumulated with Bokoy when they were exploring the outskirts of the village, in forest and field, to find good places to hunt, scavenge and fish. "You are better than them—should be better."

He said nothing in reply, long since learning the virtue of shutting his mouth, picking his battles so that he might go forward and fight better ones. To stay in the Church's favour in their town was a boon granted to few, and something to be used to help instead of rejected outright. He took the opportunity to learn from them, a good education for a middle class Indio who looked like he was insulares, and then he would come home and teach Bokoy and the rest of their friends what he had learned.

He was still Teban, his cough still recurring in the summer months that segued into rain, and while he had grown quite tall, he was still thin as ever. But for all that, he was respected, and people looked up to him with trust and some devotion, and he vowed never to waste that.

It was in his twenties, working with shipping near the docks for his mother, when he first acquired El corazón de hiero de la máquina del pueblo, The Iron Heart of the People's Machine , written by one Antonio Eduardo y Karbonel. It was sold to him by a merchant who knew of his interest in texts about reformation, renaissance, and revolution ("though don't spread them around or I'll have the frays going for my head!"), and it had been written by a Filipino, no less, one who was studying first-hand the enlightened ideals supposedly being taught in Europe.

_"They welcome me with open arms, their Filipino brother, ignorant of the monsters that they send to plague the land I call home, intent to soil it where it once shone, the shattered pearl of the orient, the land of the morning," Karbonel laments in the text. "Fools and cows the lot of them, though the drink is good and the food delightful, if detestably bland. Clearly the meat here is plain and white as the people. Give me the juicy, dark meat of the Filipino any day."_

Teban coughed through his laughter, a startled understanding of the euphemism colouring his pale cheeks pink.

The book came to be his greatest treasure, given a special place in his collection, handled with care but read so that often the stitches that held pages to spine were loose.

It didn't take long for it to be banned by Spanish authorities, marked subversive material. That only seemed to make it all the more popular, discussed even among the farmers who Teban knew could barely write their own names. People in the barangay 8 could certainly gossip faster than even the most brilliant mind could read, and soon Teban found himself reciting passages from the book to captive audiences, when a long day's work led to a good tobacco smoke and a round of heady drinks.

The book was the right combination of racy and solemn that resonated with people, bawdy jokes unique to the Filipino interspersed with the quiet wisdom of one who wished for change but did not see it happening, not without the 'machine' completely breaking down, if not breaking into pieces. It sounded less the impersonal texts of educational material and more the true voice of the author, and if Teban closed his eyes he could almost imagine it, fluent Tagalog with the slightest of Spanish accents (the man was, apparently, a genius who spoke over twenty languages including French 9 , as well as English and German, among many others), a wry drawl that matched his features, handsome and well-groomed but sly-grinned around a stylish moustache, a clever sparkle in his eyes.

For the notoriety of his work, Antonio's photograph had been distributed in prints, popular but not enough that the Guardia Civil 10 or the other less than savoury Spanish authorities would notice and be wary of. Teban had bought one, ignoring the look Chita had given him for it, and slipped the small print into his copy of El corazón de hiero.

The man was handsome, and even in a photograph did he seem full of life and movement, as though he hadn't wished to sit still and somebody had had to sit off to the side with him to keep him entertained. There was one other depiction of him—a painting by a famous man, a biologist and artist by the name of Benigno Bandera, affectionately called Brujo 11 by Antonio himself in one of his tangential notes—wherein the artist captured the soul of his movement in rough strokes, a flurry of genius that nobody could seem to catch up to.

Teban had seen it only once, as an appreciator of art, at a gallery when Bandera visited home, and could not forget it. Bandera was known for his exact work on illustrations of plant life and the human body, such was his eye for detail that his pieces seemed more than real, thin lines that Teban could not manage but which he raved about to Bokoy, to the other man's constant annoyance.

He wished he could have kept it with him in more than his memory, which was only as good as he believed it to be. He knew that if he ever saw it again he would find flaws in the remembering.

Often Teban would find himself trying to capture the movement that he saw etched in Bandera's lines, but it didn't feel at all genuine, and he knew that anybody who knew Karbonel would see the artifice. Still, he traced the lines he saw in the print carefully tucked between pages, memorizing the slight tick of the jaw, the clever, dancing eyes, the tired lines beneath them, the slight curve of his lips under well-groomed whiskers. He had the form, but now only needed the motion.

For Teban knew, even only from the man's words and dancing eyes alone, that Antonio Eduardo y Karbonel was one who could never be made to stand still.

 

 

**Chapter 2**

 

Tonyo's father was not a kind man. He was like iron, stubborn and strong, unyielding, if cold and hard. He was a drinker as well, and prone to tempers.

Still, he was better than most fathers, Tonyo reflected, when he was feeling kindly inclined. He was never negligent, almost stringent in the assurance of his son's education. He spared no expense for Tonyo's continued growth and well-being, was a good husband to his wife, and taught Tonyo many things he knew he never would have learned from any other father, let alone any other man.

His father constantly expected greatness from him, which was both a chafing sort of cruelty and the reason Tonyo grew to be gifted. His father never belittled his work, expecting him to seek excellence in all things, from languages to the arts and sciences. He expected a brilliant son, for he recognized the sparks of it when Tonyo was barely old enough to walk on his own.

He was not a kind man, but had left Tonyo many things to be grateful for, including his unyielding sense of justice, and the ability to see mediocrity where there should have been excellence. He instilled in Tonyo a mistrust of the Church that expected nothing but blind loyalty in its mediocre priests and corrupt leaders, and taught Tonyo to look at these men and see them for the dogs and pigs that they were—especially men who fancied themselves above fairness, who looked down on the people they were supposed to be caring for.

Tonyo had decided early on that it was his father's money that had kept him out of prison for so long. Huliardo's stature, his self-made fortune of a series of entrepreneurial successes, his fingers in all the right pies, must have been the only reason the hard man who had no patience for the nonsense of religious leaders, had taken so long to be persecuted.

As it was, Tonyo was nineteen years old when the Guardia Civil came to take his father away. Something about blasphemy, or treason, or plots to murder some higher official, or a combination of the three. Tonyo couldn't remember what trumped up charges they'd brought against Huliardo, only that it had been brought up by a white fray of the barangay and therefore took precedence over any other crime.

Huliardo had, in his last act as a father before his incarceration, stripped Tonyo of his family name.

It had, to many, been the act of a disgraced drunk, desperate to take from his son the inheritance of his fortune. But Tonyo knew better than that. He'd always known better. And he knew that, with his name taken from him and his father holding him in a way he never had in his whole life, kissing the top of his downy-haired head and begging him to take care of his mother, his father was doing this out of love.

Huliardo was taken away a man disgraced, while his wife inherited his company and his fortune. She had, at his bidding, reverted to her own family's name, a respectable old family by the name of Karbonel. Tonyo became y Karbonel, no longer bearing the name of his father's family, none more than an old fisherman who'd died long before Huliardo made his fortune.

The disgrace of his father's name did not go with him when he went to Europe, the name of a criminal did not hold him back even as he succeeded. And for all that Huliardo had been a cold drunk who had little idea of how to be a father when he'd still been around, he was a hero. He was a hero, and Tonyo knew that he would go down the same path.

His mother remarried and Tonyo found himself with a new stepsister and stepbrother, both of whom he loved dearly. His stepfather, Nicolas Kalasag 12 (whom Tonyo referred to as Kulas, when neither man wished for him to call him Papa) was a man of good moral character who seemed to have been in the habit of taking in strays. Many looked down on him, saying he had Negrito  13 blood, but he would only smile whenever such a thing was said and Tonyo privately thought his darker complexion was superior to the ugly, peeling pink the white frays turned in the summer, no matter how many servants they had shade them with parasols.

Tonyo's mother herself was half-white, beautiful with her light hair and kind, light eyes, but had since turned tan in long, happy days under the sunlight, and was so unlike the other peninsulares of the town that Tonyo wondered if she even shared their race. He later realized, in his travels, that it had been the unwanted and unsavoury characters that they had sent to the Philippine islands as punishment, and that it was simply a matter of his mother clearly having better stock than the pigs that made up the holy men.

Of Kulas' children, none of them looked like they were blood, but it was clear that of the many families Tonyo had met over the years, his was stronger than most.

Natalya, who Tonyo called Neneng, was a pale girl with red lips, and she near always wore a sheer black veil that covered her beautiful face. She had married young, Kulas said, and was a young widow, though Tonyo suspected the veil was less for the sake of Catholic modesty and more for hiding her sharp, unladylike smiles. "Men don't approach me while they think there is still another man in my heart," she said without the affected tones of a grieving wife.

"When did your husband die?" Tonyo asked once.

"The night of our wedding, when I killed him," Neneng replied, and whether or not she was joking, Tonyo didn't care. From what he gathered in their conversations, her first family had sold her at fourteen for the money her husband-to-be, a smelly man with wandering hands, had inherited and called it a marriage. They didn't figure on her leaving the moment she'd secured her inheritance and cutting them out of her life. She travelled away with the captain of a ship who she soon came to call father, and in her faraway town, from what she gleaned in her occasional visits there, she was still called the Black Widow in hushed, excited tones by the young women of the village.

Tonyo chafed at the way the Spaniards treated his sister, or any woman for that matter, wondering why women were 'allowed' to inherit and own businesses and lands and head families, when that was the way it had always been done long before they came.

Tonyo was the eldest, and would therefore inherit both his mother's fortune and his stepfather's shipping company (for Nicolas had long since graduated from Captain to shipowner and businessman, despite his hatred for the politics of finance and economy), but Neneng was Kulas' favourite, and Tonyo knew he would find a way for Neneng to secure his fortune before Tonyo himself.

The way their father doted on her, always whispered his many secrets into Neneng's ear, Tonyo had confidence that they would find a way. So long as it didn't involve killing him (something he'd often joked about with Neneng, which seemed to amuse her greatly), he'd be happier for it. He knew for a fact that the woman carried knives under her skirts, and had been with her when Kulas had had them practice with a plethora of firearms he'd had shipped from abroad. He knew how dangerous she could be, and counted himself lucky that she loved him as family.

His other brother, Bartolomeo Antonio, who they called Barton, was different from Neneng in that where she was ladylike, quiet and refined, never spoke out of turn and kept all her cards close to her chest (except around the ones she loved and trusted), he was brash, tanned from his many excursions, and was never once seen fully dressed in formal wear. When Tonyo was twenty and Barton fifteen, he had tried to teach him how to dress like a gentleman, and had given up within half an hour, calling him a lost cause and surrendering to Barton's wish to forego the ilustrado 14 's jacket and hat when they went to church.

Only their mother was able to dress him even remotely close to the way their family was expected to, but not even she could work miracles, and they allowed him a half-unbuttoned barong tagalog 15 and pants, with slippers.

He was a fit young man, always climbing on every single thing, from the trees outside the window to the roof of the large house, in ways that nobody but Neneng could figure out. He helped the servants, did hard labour, and was often seen playing with a one-eyed stray who soon became the family's pet.

It was a source of scandal for some of their mother's society friends, but his antics never failed to lift her spirits, and Kulas shared with Tonyo that Barton had done the same on his ship when he was a very young boy. He was their lookout, he said, and was the most reliable at spotting even the farthest ship without need of a glass. And when Tonyo bought him a pistol on his eighteenth birthday, he found out that not only was Barton's eyesight spectacular—his aim with a gun was downright inhuman.

But the gun was not Barton's favoured weapon. That honour fell to a bow and arrows fashioned for him by some mountain folk Kulas had apparently long ago befriended (which only served to strengthen the belief that he had, indeed, descended from clans and tribes of Aeta), and Tonyo knew from the game meat he brought home every so often just how skilled he was with those as well.

Before Tonyo left for Europe, Barton had whispered to him the secret of his aim, guiding Tonyo's pistol arm and bidding him safe, and Neneng slipped into his coat-sleeves the slender knives he knew she always had hidden.

Whatever it was that the two had been up to when they were still young, before Tonyo knew them, it seemed that they had seen more to be cautious of than Tonyo ever could.

 

* * *

 

 

He had enjoyed his siblings' company while he was still living in his mother's household, but knew them only through letters when he left for his studies and travels through Europe at twenty-one.

Accompanying him were his good friend from school, Jaime Rodrigo, who he called Rody, and Virgenia, (Pepay, to Tonyo) who was pursuing studies in Europe same as him, on a stipend by her amo 16 , a rich old man with no children who saw her as a daughter and intended her to inherit his business and estate one day.

Europe opened his eyes to much, though mostly that which his father saw long before him—the mediocrity of the men who fancied themselves leaders of his people, the way they treated his fellow men like animals, like savages.

"Fight them? Tonyo, I knew you were a mad genius, but I didn't think you were simply mad," Brujo said to him once, when they were sitting in a garden in Germany and his friend was studying the effect of the sun's radiation on the growth of certain species of flora.

"Think of it, my friend! Men like Gob. Hen. 17 Tadeo Roces, humbled by the will of the people. We were once strong men and women, we may be again! See, Carolina agrees with me," Tonyo pointed out. The lady with yellow locks and a sword at her hip shook her head, crossing her trousered legs.

"I agree with the need for a fight," Carolina de Vera said, "but I agree with our dear doctor here that your plans are mad. Revolution, Tonyo? We were not even a country before the Spaniards came, how do you think we can be if they are gone?"

"Children are not clay moulded and cooked in kilns by their parents. If Spain is our father or mother, then it has been neglectful, and we are old enough to find our own way. Look, Carolina, you come here to study sciences like Brujo, and to learn the more ladylike pursuits to please your family, and here you are—a fencer, a fighter, a soldier in all but name. No more ladylike than I."

"Less so, in fact," Rody said from the side, and Carolina smacked his arm, her smile indulgent, while Tonyo scowled.

"And she is more the soldier than the career soldier in our company, as well," Tonyo shot back, though Rody could only shrug in agreement, earning a kiss on the cheek from his fierce lady love.

"You have to be more careful when it comes to men like Roces," Brujo said tiredly, and Tonyo patted his hand in understanding. Tadeo Roces had been a truly abominable figure in Benigno Bandera's life, the reason he was barely ever home. Even now, they were still trying to press the charge of assault on him against Roces' own daughter, a falsehood if Tonyo ever saw one.

"Perhaps we can do something from here," Carolina suggested. "I know of a man, Edwin Jarvis—a well-spoken Englishman who owns a press in the city, who is said to have a certain vision of the future and how it must be—full of free men who live good lives, as we strive for with our own people. We might approach him, publish our thoughts on the matter of our country's mistreatment."

"A fine idea!" Tonyo exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Honestly, Carolina, not the sort of consideration I expected from you."

"You're right, mahal 18 . Your friend truly is an ass," Carolina said to Rody. She turned to Tonyo, one yellow eyebrow raised. "I know I am insulares, Antonio, but same as you, I consider the motherland my home, and all the people there my people. I would do anything to help them as you would, my Filipino spirit is not to be questioned."

Tonyo smiled, opening his hands in a peaceful gesture.

"I have never doubted your love for our motherland, Carolina. I simply meant that Rody here has given me a certain impression of soldier types, and such thoughtful intelligence is something I know now to expect from you."

"An ass," Rody said, exasperatedly. "Of the highest order."

Carolina simply laughed.

 

* * *

 

 

The first letter came while Tonyo was in Germany, many years after the conversation in the garden, residing (well, hiding) with Carolina in her mother's ancestral home after a botched courtship involving a series of duels that Tonyo won (thanks to Barton's lessons in wielding a pistol, and Neneng's skill of evasion), but that he, in the end, wished he hadn't. The woman had been abominable in ways Tonyo had not seen before, and he left her quietly, though the fuss she kicked up about it might soon bring about her own disgrace.

The paper was common parchment, the handwriting clean and clear, without the flourishes he was used to from men and women of his class, that he himself used in correspondences. It was addressed to him from an Esteban Rogero, a fellow Filipino, and by his own account, an ardent appreciator of his work.

Ardent indeed was the word Tonyo used to describe the letter, for even without being vulgar or suggestive, the admiration in the writing made his knees weak enough to force him to sit. The man—the stranger—was no poet, and Tonyo had read the works of many great ones, but his earnest words touched his heart, made his chest tight and his face warm.

_"Such is the beauty of your fiery heart," it read, "like a star, it burns bright, powers the machine itself, the engine that moves a people. Your words illuminate and inspire, and it is your words that move us even now, in the direction which I hope will one day break the iron grip that holds us by our necks."_

Tonyo had reached for a pen before he could even think, and he was writing back, pouring his renewed passion into the letter, and soon into the next book he wished to write, outlining the ideas fed to him by the brilliance of a man who was, by his own admission, common. Lower class. Better at inspiring action than anybody Tonyo had ever exchanged words with, which was saying something, considering all the brilliant and influential and truly noble people he knew.

It would take him a little over a year to finish the next book, and it would be dedicated to the man who believed his heart a star, the fire that powered the machine of his country's progress.

 

_**Chapter 3** _

__My dearest Teban,_ _

__I am to return to the country within the year for my sister's wedding (I never would have guessed she would remarry, but life is full of surprises) though I will be off again, to see to the deployment of troops in Guam, to supply them with weapons and ample protection, designed and distributed by_ ~~_my father's_ ~~ _my mother's company. I myself designed the armours when I was young, though if they are restarting production I hope to improve upon the finer points when I am at home, if I get there in time before some oaf decides to smith them in a way that saves material and money to pocket._ _

__But that is the way of humanity, isn't it? Money over the lives of others, something we learned quite well from our fatherland._ _

__I hope to see you, if it is at all possible. A thousand letters (I say a thousand for hyperbole's sake, but I know the true number, as numbers have never eluded me—seventy-three between us both, in twenty deliveries, if we do not count pages for those come up to a hundred and ninety one—ah, but I am boring you, I do go on) between us and still I have never seen your face. Your sketches are fantastic, I treasure every one of them, but I've never known a man undersell himself more—though that may simply be because I am acquainted with so many arrogant men, myself included, so forgive me if I do not believe you give yourself justice in the few self-portraits you have sent. Ah, but you could be as ugly as a hunchback with one eye and a terrible skin condition and I would think you the most brilliant and radiant of men._ _

__I'm afraid the publication of Las Maravillas has ended, as its writers are parting ways and we've begun to feel the foul breath of the rich European companies who have stakes in Spanish commerce in the islands, who believe revolution would be bad for business, though I doubt they would care about the casualties otherwise. We certainly learned that respect for the lives of our fellow man somewhere, it seems._ _

__I would love to meet you face to face. Perhaps I could sit for a portrait—you could draw me, properly. You expressed interest in it in our first letters. And I can imagine your blush now, thinking back on what you wrote before we were more intimately acquainted—the words of a schoolboy enamoured, and I would like you to know that I have never thrown those letters away. I bring them with me everywhere, keep them close to my heart, so I know to hide them when I see you in case you wish to burn them._ _

__As you have confessed to admire me for so long, I must tell you how deeply I admire you. The book I have just written, the last publication I will ask Vision (Jarvis has taken to the name quite well, though I doubt he really hated it as much as he claimed to in the early days of its inception) to publish for me, it was written because of you. Because you have lit a fire in me no man ever has, and I do not feel even the slightest shame in admitting that._ _

__See me. Come see me, it is not a request. I do not ask for forgiveness for my boldness, for I have never known any other way to be. Boldly, I ask for my radiant man to come see me. For if my heart, as you said once, powers the machine, then it would need a guide, like a vessel to carry our ideals into fruition._ _

__No, not a guide. A captain._ _

__Come see me, Captain of my Iron Heart._ _

 

__Forever your devoted, friend,_ _

__Your Tonyo._ _

 

* * *

 

 

 

Another of many banned texts now listed by Spanish authorities, perhaps the greatest of them next to Antonio y Karbonel's book (soon to be books), was the newsletter of the Las Maravillas, written stories, essays and free thoughts by a group of enlightened men and women who were a combination of educated Filipinos and their well-meaning European friends, all of whom believed in reformation (if not outright revolution) for the good of the people.

It was collected by interested parties and distributed, and though many of them were burned by the Guardia Civil, many copies were still kept safe, most of them by the women of certain households, who hid them in places most men would never look, if not out of propriety then simply out of ignorance.

Teban's own secret library of banned works was kept safe in his household by his wife, Margarita, who he and Bokoy and all who loved her affectionately called Pegay.

Long before he and Tonyo (for they were the furthest thing from strangers now, and the thought filled Teban's heart with such a fire whenever it occurred) had started exchanging letters, Teban had thought Pegay to be the best of women—especially since, while being the fiercest in the city nearest to Teban's barangay, was also kind, respectful of people who others would overlook or look down on.

Teban had thought her wonderful, loved her for who she was and not for the beauty that seemed the only quality others thought "redeeming" in her, for her attitude, they said, was not fitting for a good wife.

They had become friends, and had married because they loved each other (though the push had come from some suitors still knocking down Pegay's door for a chance at her estate, which, while not high class, was sizeable).

When Teban had begun writing to Tonyo, he was at first uncertain if he would ever receive a response or if his clumsy handwriting would make the man think him unworthy and avoid any correspondence with him. It had been Pegay who reassured him, teased him of his moon eyes, saying he was not a coward, had never been in anything that mattered, so why hem and haw?

The first response had been staggering—five pages worth of letters, tied together with four other envelopes of much the same, the first a response to his letter and the other four follow-ups asking for his opinions on things Tonyo seemed only to think of on the spot.

Now that Teban knew more about Tonyo, he couldn't bring himself to be surprised. If he'd thought Antonio y Karbonel was a character, Tonyo was even more so, a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas that never ceased. Teban suspected that if there were a way for Tonyo to communicate with him every time an idea struck him, he would never have a moment's rest, for Tonyo would find reason to communicate with him at all hours of the day, his mind jumping from one idea to the next, half of which (or even simply a small fraction, with how fast Tonyo could think) he would deign to share with Teban, of all people.

When the man called him brilliant, not once but three times in the first letters, Teban had blushed so bright and had plastered a grin on his face so wide and long in the day that Pegay had asked him first if he was sick, then if he was lovesick, and then laughing at him delightedly afterward. He never could hide anything from Pegay.

Bokoy called him out on his strange behaviour after the third bundle (for they no longer stuck to writing single letters, a product of Tonyo's own whirlwind thoughts and Teban, though more prudent and thoughtful, still trying to match him thought for thought), as Teban waited at the docks when they were recording and moving cargo with the uncharacteristic impatience of a man waiting for a delivery.

Teban informed Bokoy primly that he was simply waiting for an important correspondence from an important man, and Bokoy eyed him warily until their stare down was interrupted.

"More like he's waiting for letters from his sweetheart like a dalagita 19 in love," called a voice from above, and Teban shook his head at the first mate of the docked ship, while Bokoy grinned, saluting the man as he jumped down from his perch.

By now Teban was familiar with Barton's antics, though he didn't appreciate the younger man spying on him so. He liked working with the Kalasag shipping company, liked the owner—Kulas Kalasag, a dignified man who started poor and rose in ranks through honest, hard work and whose children were as much his as they were not his blood. When Kulas had made him overseer of their locale, Teban had been grateful, and Bokoy had become his second in the position, his own sharp eye ensuring that none of the goods were tampered with, or pocketed—a common problem for some companies, if not Kulas'.

"Oh is that right?" Bokoy said interestedly, and Teban sighed, rubbing his eyes as Barton nodded vigorously. "Does Pegay know about this, then?"

"She was the first to laugh at me for it," Teban said, shaking his head. "It's a mistake to marry your best friend, it only gives her the opportunity to mock you until the end of time."

"Hey!" Bokoy said, affronted. "I'm your best friend, don't you forget."

"Not if you keep heckling me about this," Teban shot back, though without any real heat. "You too, Barton. You shouldn't spy on people."

"I've never been your best friend, Teban. I have nothing to lose. Señor Bautista, on the other hand, is my soon-to-be brother-in-law, and I'm afraid my loyalties are more with family than with friends, no matter how noble and upright they might be," Barton sighed dramatically. "And don't blame me—Pegay told Neneng, and Neneng told me. Don't expect secrets between friends and family, Señor Rogero, it won't happen."

Teban hid his face in his hands, if only to scrounge the last of his dignity by hiding the angry blush that marred his white cheeks, while Barton spoke to Bokoy.

"He's been exchanging such amorous letters with, and I quote from Pegay, some intellectual fellow in Europe who he enamoured with his thoughtfulness. It's all very sweet and passionate, is what I hear. I figure Pegay didn't tell Neneng everything, or she did and my dear sister is simply keeping the juiciest bits from me, but I do think our dear friend here is in love."

He said it with amusement, without judgement, and the clenching of Teban's heart eased the littlest bit. Still, he looked between his fingers at Bokoy, who had his chin on his hand, looking thoughtful.

"Conchita always did tell me you were inclined in a different way," he said, amused. "And given your opinion on the Church as a mason, it ought not to surprise me. Still, you are a married man, so—"

"I am and will always be faithful to Pegay," Teban sighed. "She knows everything I do, there are no secrets between us. And besides," he continued, his tone turning despondent. "They're just letters."

Bokoy smiled, a bit sadly, at his friend. "If they mean this much to you, I doubt they are just anything."

As with many things in Teban's life that he took for granted, Bokoy was right.

For a thousand (hyperbole, he thought, amused) letters later, he found himself at his best friend's wedding to the beautiful Natalya Kalasag, standing before her brother ( and how could he not have known, had he never asked ), her dear Kuya Tonyo. Her half brother, Antonio y Karbonel.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Coming home was like coming back to a new world. The streets were more bustling, the people seemed livelier, and perhaps it was simply Tonyo's excitement at seeing his loved ones, but even the days seemed brighter than ever before.

He had rented a carriage for Brujo's sake, though if he could he would have walked all the way home to his mother's house, though miles away, simply to take in the sights and the familiar air of home, mountain breeze coming down to cleanse the stink of the city.

Brujo was still in a bad place with the Spanish authorities, though his non-descript demeanour and plain clothes made him difficult to pick out of a crowd. Add that to his many friends and their privilege, to pay guards to turn a blind eye to their harbouring of a fugitive and to pay carriages to whisk him from one place to the next, and he was able to go home every now again.

Betina Roces, Brujo's once lady love who was purely Kastila 20 , still wrote him letters, secreted to him by Brujo's friends, to whom she addressed the correspondences. They could no longer be sweethearts as they once were, but there was still love there, still affection, her trust in him clear as day in the contents. She would, in a code they both had learned in their youth, tell Brujo of her father's plans, most especially those concerning him, but sometimes of his movements against the rising tide of reformists, whom he called subversives. Betina was well-educated, and of a like mind to Brujo and his friends, and believed that the country should find its own way, believed that its people deserved that chance.

"You seem more... excitable than usual, Tonyo," Brujo said, bemused. "I didn't know you were so eager to see your siblings."

"First of all, Brujo, I am appalled that you would think so little of me when I clearly adore my dear, beautiful little sister and my lively monkey of a brother," Tonyo said, sniffing. "Not to mention my honourable stepfather and beautiful mother."

"They are all that," Brujo agreed placidly. "But the look in your eyes is not the one you have when you speak of them. I know you, Tonyo."

Tonyo huffed. "Well fine, I suppose if you're going to be that way, I might as well spoil the surprise." He took a deep breath, before announcing, "I am planning to establish a reformist group of freemasons here in the country, and I have a leader already in mind."

Tonyo couldn't help but smirk at Brujo's gobsmacked expression.

"You'll get us all killed," he said eventually, his voice faint as he slumped back in his seat.

"I'm not forcing you to join us, Brujo," Tonyo said softly in response.

"No, no," Brujo said, flapping his hand dismissively. "Of course I will. You know that, knew that full well when you decided to spring it on me. Betina will be glad to help where she can, I'm sure. I assume this is open to women, as well? Knowing you."

"Neneng would kill me otherwise," Tonyo said airily. "If not her, then Carolina. I'm appointing our dear lady soldier as one of the leaders, if we grow enough to need more than one. And having women in such positions will throw the Spaniards off, for reasons I couldn't explain if you asked me. It'll all be secret of course, but we can probably manage that."

"You said you had a leader in mind?" Brujo continued. "Who is it?"

"There's a man in a nearby barrio, only an hour by boat," Tonyo said, his hand tapping at the sill in a nervous gesture. "His name is Esteban Rogero. I think he'd be a good fit."

"Rogero, as in the Rogero who you've been writing to like a madman for the last year? That Rogero?" Brujo said, eyebrows climbing to his hairline.

Tonyo braced himself for Brujo's next words. For all of Rody's jabs and Pepay's sharp words when it came to his personal life, Brujo always knew how to really dig in under his ribs, even when he was entirely pleasant in tone.

"He must be very special, then, if the great Antonio y Karbonel trusts him so," Brujo said thoughtfully, and Tonyo hissed, nodding quickly.

"Do you remember the Captain of the Iron Heart?" Tonyo said softly, and Brujo nodded, recognizing the name from Tonyo's newest book.

"It's him, then?"

"Yes."

"Ah," Brujo said significantly. "When do I get to meet him?"

Tonyo grimaced. "When I do. It seems he's coming over here for some event, though I don't know what. Something to do with his best friend."

"Well then," Brujo said, his words weighing heavier than they sounded in his quiet, gentle cadence.

"He is, you know," Tonyo said.

"What?"

"He is special. And I'm as excited to meet him as I am afraid," Tonyo confessed. "If he gets to know me, I fear he will no longer wish to associate with the absolute mess of a man that I really am."

"As somebody who's associated with the absolute mess of a man that you've been for the past decade," Brujo said, sounding amused, "I'm sure that won't happen. I'm also sure that, based on what you've told me and what Rody has secreted from your letters to read aloud at the communal table while you were away—"

"He did what!?" Tonyo squawked.

"—that he feels just the same as you do, and will want you to like him just as much as you want him to like you," Brujo finished, ignoring Tonyo's glare. "I promise, Tonyo. He will love you."

Tonyo deflated then, turning back to stare out the window.

"That's a part of why I'm afraid," he murmured, watching the white clouds drift across the sunny, summery sky.

 

* * *

 

 

"Esteban Rogero, this is my dearest half brother, just returned from overseas, Antonio y Karbonel. You might know him by some of his written work," Neneng introduced, though by her wry tone Teban knew she was laughing at him inside. "Tonyo, this is Teban."

Immediately, Tonyo reached his hand out to shake Teban's, barely halfway up before it was gripped by a quick, calloused hand with, long, clever fingers that tightened around Teban's own.

"We've met," Tonyo said breathlessly, before backtracking, "Wait, no, we've not met. What I mean is, we're acquainted. We, ah, have corresponded, in the past."

Neneng was smirking by now, but said nothing, her red lips stretching wider at her brother's antics.

"It's good to finally meet you face to face, Ca—ah, Señor Rogero," Tonyo said formally, and Teban begged God and all the powers that he was not red as a tomato now, still gripping Tonyo's hand firmly in his own.

"And you, Señor. I am—that is, I am a fan of your work," he said, then begging God and all the powers for the earth to swallow him whole. Neneng looked on in amusement, and only then did Teban realize he still had not let go.

"I, ah, did not know you were Natalya's brother. I've been accompanying my friend Jaime here for the past year as he courted her, and I had not realized—"

"As I had not realized the young man who finally won her heart after so many years was this Bokoy you spoke of in your letters," Tonyo said eagerly, his eyes moving to the side in a gesture Teban didn't understand, until Neneng laughed and kissed her brother on the cheek, red staining it with her rouge as she whispered in his ear before leaving to welcome other guests.

"Shall we... move to the balcony to talk?" Tonyo then said, almost shyly, and Teban almost certainly did flush this time, nodding his assent. He saw Pegay out of the corner of his eye, hiding her face demurely behind a fan while Neneng did the same as she whispered to her—the first sign Teban had that she was plotting something, as Pegay was not known to be demure under any circumstances.

She smiled at him, at first teasingly, then warmly, gesturing for him to go.

 

 

They stood beneath a bougainvillea tree, weighed down heavy with its beautiful flowers, shading them from the sunlight. It was an idyllic scene, reserved for the most romantic of lovers, and they leaned against the wood rail, elbows brushing with their proximity.

"No matter how far I go, how many wonders I see, there's nothing quite like coming home," Tonyo said softly, his eyes set on the middle distance. Their house (and quite the estate it was, Teban had remarked many times before) was close enough to the square to see people scurrying about their day to day tasks, but far enough that it was a soothing echo in the distance of dogs barking, children laughing and shouting, and the townspeople gossiping.

The air was clean here, the Karbonel house standing between the city and the forest leading up to the mountain, and Teban revelled in the calm.

"High praise from somebody who's seen so much of the world," Teban said, a little louder than a murmur.

"The world is much, much wider than Europe," Tonyo said, angling his head to face him. "I was right, you know."

"What?"

"You don't do yourself justice," Tonyo said quietly, his hand reaching out to brush the stray hair off Teban's forehead. "In your sketches, I mean." Before he could draw his hand back, Teban clutched it, pressing it against his cheek.

"Rough," he said, sending shivers down Tonyo's spine as the side of his mouth brushed Tonyo's hand.

"Terrible, I know. Not the hands of a proper illustrado," Tonyo said faintly.

"No, I—they're lovely. An engineer's hands. The hands of a man who works and creates. I find that to be admirable."

"Admirable! Any more of that admiration from you and my ego may grow large as a dirigible, with as much hot air."

Teban smirked, which should not have looked as good as it did on his wholesome face. "I don't think you need me for that, your ego is quite sizeable enough already."

"Oh, is that how it is?" Tonyo said, his mouth threatening to break out the widest of grins. "I'll have you know, Señor, I did not come here to have my many, many virtues insulted."

"I thought you came here for your sister's wedding," Teban challenged, one eyebrow raising.

Tonyo leaned closer, into his space, and said "I didn't come to this balcony for my sister's wedding, my dearest Teban."

He would give worlds and half his fortune to see that same blush on Teban's cheeks once more, the way his eyelids drooped ever so slightly at his last words.

Words read on a letter, heard for the first time.

"Where are you staying?" Tonyo said eventually, when they lingered much too close for much too long.

"Natalya invited myself and Pegay to stay in the house with the family. Your family, I suppose."

"Pegay, you mentioned her in some of your letters. Is she a very good friend?" Tonyo asked curiously.

Teban faltered, but didn't hesitate to speak the truth, knowing that acting the coward would only bring him grief.

"Yes, one of my best friends. And my wife," he said. Tonyo's entire demeanour seemed to shift, his posture tightening, drawing back, but not quick enough (fortunately) to be missed when Teban caught his arm.

"She is my friend, Tonyo. A dear friend. Only just. I love her, as she does me, but the marriage was more for the sake of her—of her not wishing to be wed at all, but of her family forcing it upon her. We were both much younger, and I had not—I had not yet begun writing to you. She knows—I mean, that is, she knows how I—" Teban faltered then, uncertainty making his words waver but not his hand, which still gripped Tonyo's arm steadily.

"She was the one who told me to write you, even when I was afraid."

Tonyo seemed to snap back then, his posture still tense but his face less cold. "Afraid? Why?"

"I was afraid you'd think me a silly country bumpkin, not worthy of your time. I was afraid I'd make a fool of myself—and I did, but you still wrote back anyway," Teban said, smiling softly.

Tonyo shook his head, disbelief spread across his smile. "I wrote back because I'd never wished more to speak to a man who was so far away before. Your words touched my heart long before I even got to know you, so you should never have been worried. You're too brilliant for me to have thought anything but the best of you."

Their hands came together and fingers entwined as they stepped into each other's spaces. Tonyo was shorter than Teban by a few inches, but they were level enough to press their foreheads together, as far as they could go even in the shade of the bougainvillea.

"I am here for two weeks before I'm to be off again," Tonyo confided. "I don't know when I'll be coming back."

"Then these weeks will be ones I savour," Teban promised.

 

**Chapter 4**

 

"Barton, if you were not my friend, or my bosom brother's in-law, I would push you off this balcony."

"Pegay, please ask your husband to stop threatening me. I am of a higher class, you know! My lordly disposition cannot handle such vitriol."

"Barton, if you don't stop now I'll do it myself."

"Alright, alright. Will we have this competition or not?"

"Forty paces!" Teban shouted, and when the two were far enough, "Load!"

And as they aimed, "Release!"

At the end of it, Pegay had hit every target, but Barton had hit the same one over and over so smoothly that it looked as though only one bullet had passed through, when in fact, it had been three.

"I don't understand you. Either of you. Happily married and yet you allow my Kuya to step out with your husband so often they've already got the town talking."

Pegay raised a well-tapered eyebrow at Barton before pointing to Teban with her unloaded revolver. "We are a marriage of wilful creatures. He could never make me do anything I didn't want to do, and I could never prevent him from doing what he truly wanted if I tried. That said, we did not enter this marriage on a romance, and that he's found it with somebody who can match his wit and passion, then I am nothing but pleased. You ought to be pleased as well, to see your brother so happy."

Barton scratched the back of his head, sighing. "I admit, seeing Tonyo so hopelessly enamoured is quite the treat. I'm more interested in what he's planning, with your husband, his beloved, behind closed doors. And believe me, my rooftop excursions have convinced me that what they're up to is much more scandalous than an affair."

"Is it an affair when I know every detail of the sordid things they get up to?" Pegay wondered, and at this point Teban had given up on hiding his blush.

"I don't tell you everything," he muttered.

"Yes, but what you don't tell me, I get from Tonyo, who is gleefully eager to share. He, Bokoy and I commiserate over drinks about loving you and all the suffering that entails," Pegay laughed, and Teban shook his head before his eyes widened.

"He said he loves me?" he said, disbelievingly, and Pegay and Barton were bent over laughing before he could take it back.

"You've married yourself a bright one there, Pegay," Barton said, wiping stray tears from his eyes.

"Teban is terribly smart in all but matters of the heart," Pegay agreed sagely, pecking Teban on the cheek.

"He's leaving soon," Teban said darkly. He and the other two packed up their gear, heading back toward the house. He'd not been eager to leave Tonyo's side for a minute, but he could never refuse his wife anything, even if it were a silly competition between herself and Barton, who she learned was a sharpshooter like her. Though Barton had the decisive victory, the younger man praised Pegay for her good eye and steady hand, and said that no man nor woman had ever beaten his hawk's eyes, so she shouldn't be discouraged.

"Yes, to Guam. I'm sorry, Teban," Pegay said gently.

"You shouldn't be," Teban said, smiling. Barton sighed.

"He's always gone. He's a good man, but he's never felt as close to me as Itay and Neneng, even Inay 21 . He's always marched to the beat of his own drum, a force of nature all his own. That you wormed your way into his heart so deeply is a feat I never thought I'd congratulate anybody for. And he writes so often to the family that I find it fantastical to know there's somebody who has to deal with his mad musings ten times more."

"I suppose there are always the letters," Teban said, matching Barton's sigh.

"You'll have to be more careful, though," Barton said, his tone darkening suddenly. "Even behind closed doors, there's always somebody listening. Somebody who could be looking through your letters."

He stepped in front of Teban, stopping him in his tracks. "I know what you and my brother are planning, Teban. This group, this free thinking organization you're both discussing when everybody else thinks you're honeymooning. Do you know that Tadeo Roces was the one who approved the arrest of Tonyo's father on the orders of the frays? The very same man, the Gobernador Heneral, is breathing down the necks of our people looking for any whiff of subversive activity, and you and Tonyo want to start a group about it."

"This isn't about what we want, Barton," Teban said seriously. "This is about the country. About how we need to get out from under Spain's thumb if we're ever to be truly free."

"For all that you're both older than I, you're too naïve, my friend," Barton said. "It'll be so much harder to protect you both when you're painting yourselves targets for Roces and his own insufferable Spanish nationalism."

"You need not be involved, Barton," Teban said stonily. "If you feel so strongly about it."

Barton only grinned, lopsided and just a little sad.

"Of course I'm involved, Teban. Tonyo is my kuya, and I don't turn my back on family."

 

* * *

 

 

Los Vengadores had their first meeting on the last day before Tonyo's departure, coming together under the guise of friends coming together for his despidida  22 , to drink and make merry and bid their good friend farewell.

The first members swore in, not signing with their names, but with names they had chosen, along with their own symbols and sigils, created themselves or based on letters or existing signs.

Esteban Rogero was marked leader, and Antonio y Karbonel their benefactor and founder. Natalya Romaño Kalasag, Bartolomeo Antonio Kalasag, Benigno Bandera, Jaime Bautista and Jaime Rodrigo also signed, laying their marks on the paper with blood.

Neither Margarita Cartera Rogero nor Betina Roces had signed, but were marked founding members, to protect them from when somebody would inevitably (according to Neneng and Barton) figure out the code of their names on the page. So that somebody would be left when they were taken away.

Another round of drinks was served, and a toast was made for the first of the Los Vengadores.

Antonio y Karbonel left for Guam the next day.

 

* * *

 

 

Two weeks later, Antonio y Karbonel was rerouted, deported back to the Philippines on an order by the Gobernador Heneral, and arrested.

Los Vengadores only grew.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_"I am not Barton, you know."_

_"Yes, I think we've established that. For one thing, Barton does not have a moustache. One that is also a beard? I've never figured out how you do it, but it does have some appeal."_

_"Oh, shush, you. What I mean is, I've never even climbed a tree. Well, maybe a small one. One behind the house, when I was a child. But I'm not as athletic as Barton, nor am I one for physical activity that doesn't involve a room in a house with padded swords. I've never really been so adventurous as to go into a forest."_

_"You've been around the world but you cannot fathom the idea of walking a little ways into a forest behind your own home?" Teban laughed._

_"Hey, around the world doesn't mean I scaled cliffs and climbed mountains on quests to find lost treasure. My around the world involved comfortable summer homes and drinking with the high rollers. The most adventurous thing I did was get on a boat on open water."_

_"So then you're about as adventurous as Barton, Bokoy or myself on a normal day at work on the docks?"_

_"Exactly."_

_"Then why did you agree to come?" Teban laughed, helping Tonyo get loose from another sharp branch that had caught on his trouser leg for about the fifth time. They'd gone off path, deeper into the forest (still something of a grove, though they could have been miles up the mountain for all Tonyo was complaining)._

_"I thought the rewards would outweigh the risk," Tonyo said, ever the numbers man. "But right now I've lost a good pair of trousers to nettles and barbs and I still don't see an end to these trees, so I'm reassessing."_

_"You haven't lost them yet," Teban muttered, before saying to him, grinning, "Don't worry, we're almost there. Want me to carry your pack for you?"_

_"Ever the gentleman," Tonyo said, reluctantly handing the pack over, perhaps assessing in his own thoughtful way how unequipped he was to handle the trek on his own, let alone with half their things in tow. Teban, on the other hand (no longer so skinny, much stronger now, working on the docks, still tall and not as strong built as others, but strong), had been exploring forests with Bokoy since he was a child, and this was his territory as much as the docks by the city were._

_"Almost there," Teban repeated, kissing Tonyo's cheek when he caught up, taking his hand to lead him as they pushed through the giant leaves of low-hanging trees._

_Teban smiled as he heard Tonyo's breath hitch at the sight before them, the little gasp close to Teban's ear._

_The spring was still as a mirror, clean, clear and beautiful, with leaves drifting on the top of the water and rocks sparkling beneath from the sunlight streaming through the wide spaces between the trees._

_Tonyo approached almost reverently, stumbling only a little until he reached the water's edge._

_"It's beautiful," he whispered._

_"Bokoy and I found it a few months after he'd started courting Natalya. He and Neneng must have visited this place a few times, she was surprised as you are."_

_"I've lived in that house for years and I never even realized this was here," Tonyo said, his fingertips skimming the surface of the clear water but never breaking it._

_Teban sat beside him and Tonyo reached out immediately, pressing their foreheads together before touching their lips in the lightest, gentlest of kisses._

_"You are a treasure who finds me even more treasures in places I never thought to look," he said. "How was I so lucky to have found you?"_

_"I ask myself the same all the time," Teban assured, stealing another kiss, his mouth too wide a smile to do it properly. "We're a little ways in. Nobody around that we wouldn't hear rustling through the trees. Did you want to..." He trailed off, hoping he sounded alluring rather than awkward._

_"Take a swim?" Tonyo said wryly. Teban slumped slightly, but his mood didn't stay low for long as Tonyo began unbuttoning his shirt, eyes half-lidded as he looked at Teban the whole time. When he had it off, it prompted Teban to pull his own over his head, the two of them meeting in kisses that were much less innocent than before, hands struggling to divest themselves of all their garments before they slipped into the water._

_"Cold!" Tonyo hissed, while Teban splashed him, putting his head under the water and coming back up, wiping his face and grinning._

_"Oh. Oh no, don't you—" Tonyo said, before Teban pulled him under the water for a moment, the two of them coming back up for air with Tonyo spluttering and cursing all at once._

_"You absolute—!" Tonyo began, hackles rising, but instead of finishing he simply splashed Teban in the face, and Teban could only laugh. The play was familiar—he and Bokoy and the other kids had done much the same in their youth, but it was different now, charged with so much more as Teban dived and came back up to wrap his arms around Tonyo's waist, the two of them pressed up against each other under the water._

_"Weren't you the one who wanted to take a swim?" Teban teased, and Tonyo allowed the warmth to seep into him, mouth quirking into a familiar half smile._

_"I'm open to your earlier suggestion now."_

_"Which one?"_

_"I think you know."_

_Teban was tempted to play the fool for a few more beats, but instead surrendered to Tonyo's ministrations as one of his hands slid down his body, certain in its intent._

_They had a good, comfortable siesta after their romp in the spring, the waters as still and calm as they had been when they first arrived, the only point of contact where Tonyo's foot dipped still into the water as he and Teban lay sleeping, wrapped around each other in the warmth of the afternoon sun._

 

* * *

 

 

"They're holding him under suspicion of treason. It seems with the Iron Heart of the People's Machine, and with the new one, what was it? The Captain of the Iron Heart coming along, Roces is antsy. They'll be arguing for the value of works of fiction, and Tonyo's richer than rich with his mother's fortune and his stepfather's amassing wealth, so he should be fine. Especially since they have no proof beyond works of fiction," Rody said grimly.

"Fine does not mean free," Neneng pointed out. "They may not imprison him or execute him, but on the word of a suspicious General like Roces, he might be sanctioned. I worry what the Gob. Hen. will come up with."

"I sent a lawyer over to where the case is being heard," Teban said. "Mattias, he's opposed frays in court cases against locals over land so often that they've taken to calling him The Devil. He usually works for poorer folk as their representative and defender, and the fact that he wins most of his cases attests to his brilliance as a law man. His practice is not large or illustrious, and he lives off the kindness of his fellows, but Tonyo being both a good man and a rich one might do him some good."

"Perhaps the outcome will be better with his help," Neneng sighed. "Tonyo was never very good at subtlety, I'd written to him one too many times about keeping his head down, not testing the frays and their patience after what happened to his father. He could very well have used a false name if he wished, when he published his works. But from what my own father tells me, Tonyo is too much like his own father, Huliardo, to expect that of him."

"So Señor Nicolas and Señor Huliardo were acquainted?" Teban said, surprised. Tonyo had never mentioned such a thing, even if both his fathers had come up in conversation more than once.

"They ran in the same circles," Neneng said mysteriously, and Teban suspected (not that he hadn't already, before) that Tonyo's reformist ideals hadn't sprung out of the ground from nowhere.

 

* * *

 

 

 

"Exiled!"

"It was the best they could do, Roces was so intent—"

"He's been exiled to Dapitan, how could that be better!?"

"Teban," Bokoy huffed. "Tonyo's stepfather owns ships. His brother and sister are sailors. You work for a shipping company. They've sent him to a small village, not a prison camp. Visiting would be a day's trip, little more than that. He'll be fine. Bored, but he's always bored one way or another. He'll be fine."

"I'm more worried about the fact that Roces seems to be making all the right moves. Or wrong ones, for us," Brujo said darkly, and Teban and Bokoy turned to look at him in question.

"They're separating him from us. Cutting him off. He might suspect Tonyo's Vengadores, or that Tonyo's been recruiting. We're in real danger if he ever finds any evidence of this," Brujo explained.

"What about his daughter?" Bokoy said sharply, and Brujo looked close to exploding at the mention of Betina.

"She wouldn't, I trust her more than anybody here," Brujo said, and Teban raised a hand to silence Bokoy before he could retaliate.

"She is trustworthy, Bokoy," Teban said, "but we do need to make sure everything's kept secret," he then directed to Brujo. "We don't know if Roces reads the letters that come through his home, even secretly. I know you use code, but perhaps ask Neneng to write as a society friend, something a man like Roces wouldn't look twice at."

Neneng was, to the surprise of nobody, particularly good at masking her intent with what seemed like silly gossip and overblown, girlish enthusiasm for seemingly petty matters.

It reminded Teban of something Tonyo had said once, something he said that Neneng had said to him when he read to her some fantastical European stories about secretive men and shadowy leaders.

"Why have we never heard of woman spies, for all the stories we have of men?" Tonyo had asked. "Because all the good spies are women, for they have never been caught," he then said, triumphantly, and Teban laughed, believing it wholly to be true.

More women had been brought into the fold for Los Vengadores, though not all like the secretive Neneng. Some were as combative as Pegay or Carolina, some were meek and demure but terribly brave in their faith to the cause. Some had minds like Tonyo's, or near to, as far as Teban could tell—calculating, quick minds, flying from one thing to another like they were borne on a hurricane.

Bokoy had brought in a handful of men he trusted from the docks, men who were hardworking, good people who Teban had directed for many years. They were loyal men, and their leader and patriarch had sent with them words of encouragement to Teban and his venture, stating that he could not join himself for his status, but would send aid where he could. Alejandro Piero was a good man, a friend of Nicolas', and Teban knew only good could come from an alliance with him.

 

* * *

 

 

A year passed, and near everyone had a copy of Antonio y Karbonel's El Capitan del corazon de hierro, The Captain of the Iron Heart. The Iron Heart of the People's Machine had been a series of essays, interspersed between the tragic story of a man who loved his country, was arrested for defending a woman against the piggish attentions of a priest at the local church, and who was imprisoned for many years, visited by a writer and journalist who he spoke and wrote to regularly. The man eventually died in prison, and the writer published his works, sparking change in their people.

The Captain of the Iron Heart told of the story of a young man, neither rich nor well off, who was inspired by the works of the man who loved his country, who revolted against the government by gathering together men and women of a like mind.

He received aid as well from neighbouring countries, allies to their cause, and was for his prowess on the water thus called Captain. He fulfilled the wishes and dreams of the iron heart that had been imprisoned, and with the defeat of the corrupt men in power, heralded a new day for his people.

It was luck, Neneng said, that the book had come to the country after Tonyo had already been sentenced, for they could not sentence him for the same crime twice. And for the charge of "the harbouring and creation of subversive material" that had landed him in exile, the second book, with its 'defeat' of the reigning government, would have definitely gotten him a heavier sentence.

Much to Teban's relief and Neneng's amusement, Tonyo's exile seemed not to dampen his spirits at all.

His letters were angry, funny, hopeful things, full of rants about how the people lived without proper means to fetch or filter clean water, how their carts wheels creaked and their houses leaked and all things he was sure he could fix. He'd write for them to send him tools and materials, some of which was code for what they needed for the group but most of it things Teban had to ship over.

Teban visited him five months after his sentence, riding with Bokoy but not yet with the rest of Tonyo's family. Teban found himself grateful, for once, that nobody knew, or could know, of the intimacies between himself and Tonyo, for unlike the Kalasag and Karbonel families, he was not held under suspicion for a personal delivery to the area where Tonyo was forced to stay.

The sight that greeted him when they rode in was one he would not soon forget.

The plain, backwater town that had been described to them looked to be flourishing, the people bustling, laughing, excitable. There was a buzz of energy that seemed almost familiar, and Teban soon arrived at a building site where he found Tonyo—Tonyo, who had claimed never to be adventurous, who seemed to flinch every time Teban suggested an excursion into the forest, was up to his arms in dust and grime, helping the workers set a heavy wood beam and teaching them how to work the pulley that would raise it high and steady. Teban watched him work, with Bokoy leaving him, saying he would unload their cargo while Teban pined after his love from the sidelines.

Eventually, Tonyo spotted him, looking dumbstruck, enough that the other men began laughing, tracking Tonyo's eyes to Teban and then greeting him with enthusiasm.

"Your man Antonio has been a gift to this town," one of the workers said later, when they were gathering for an afternoon's feast after a long, hard day of work. "When we found out he was being sent here, we feared some reprobate who was lucky enough to be born rich, educated an ilustrado but lacking in common sense, but he's proven us wrong! Never has this town flourished so, he has the mind of an engineer and the approach of a labourer. Fixed one of the wheels of my kariton  23 when he first came, said the creaking was bothering him. Imagine my surprise when, instead of paying some poor soul to do it, he got right down and started hacking and greasing until it drove steady on the road and was more well-balanced than it had been when I first got it."

"I'm as surprised as you," Teban admitted, feeling the barest hints of shame for not thinking of Tonyo as the kind of man who wouldn't shy away from hard work. It seemed as though an aversion to forest treks and exploration did not mean the man was devoid of physical prowess. "I knew he was an engineer, and a good one, but I don't think I've ever seen him work like this."

"You should see what he's done to our church. The fray here is kindly, but old and grey. He hasn't been able to pay for the upkeep, or do it himself, but Tonyo did it all without expecting anything in return, even if the priest offered him indulgence upon indulgence. He said keep your indulgences, padre, the people deserve a few more years with you around to guide them down the right path. Ha! I know he was forced to come here, but I am glad he did, and I wish he would stay."

Teban smiled warmly when Tonyo finally came over, after having his face and arms wiped down by fussing wives who refused to give him his meal (the best and biggest portions, Teban noted) until he was clean.

"You're doing such good work here. These people are lucky to have you," Teban said later, when the two of them sat on the lantern-lit veranda of Tonyo's home.

"I've never been so happy to have so much to do and to work on but... half the time, I feel as though I'm neglecting the group I myself established, being so far away. The other half, I fear you are doing so much better without me."

"You will always be the heart of it, Tonyo. No matter if you're there or not, your presence is always felt, in the fires you lit in all the people who wish to follow your example," Teban said gently, wrapping his arms around his beloved.

"You've grown bigger," Tonyo said slyly. "Where did my sundalong patpat 24 go? You seem now more like Heracles or Bernardo Carpio  25 with these impossible muscles. I thought I was doing more heavy lifting than you, but it seems where I've taken to using pulleys, you've just been dead-lifting everything."

"Your mother feeds me overmuch every time I come visit her. She thought I was too thin. I thought I'd grow fat before I grew strong, but all it seems that leadership does in fact require a certain amount of hard labour."

"You were born for it," Tonyo said wistfully. "My captain. You are doing so well. It heartens me to know that you can do so much without me."

"But I'm not without you," Teban pointed out playfully. The lack of a response cut the soft, sweet air with tension. "Tonyo?"

"I've received word from Neneng that Roces wants my head on a platter."

Teban tensed. "We knew that. But he can't have you charged for the same alleged crimes. You've already been exiled."

Tonyo turned in Teban's arms, smiling brightly when they pressed up against one another, though his eyes seemed infinitely sad.

"It took them years to pin anything on my father," said Tonyo softly. "But they did eventually. He was imprisoned for a year, only to be put under firing squad after they supposedly found further evidence of treason, of intent against Spain. Whether that was true or not, I know for a fact that one sentence does not preclude another. You have to be ready for that eventuality."

"What are you—are you saying you're ready to d—"

"I thought we both were," Tonyo said softly. "Die for our cause. You can say it, Teban. We've spoken of it before."

"No, I—no, this isn't... you're still safe, this is only hearsay, you're not—You're safe. I'll keep you safe. Your family will keep you safe, Tonyo, don't—"

 

 

 

 

Tonyo silenced him with a kiss, wet from Teban's fearful, angry tears. He lifted Teban's low-hanging head to meet his eyes.

"I'm sorry I've upset you," Tonyo said. "But you have to understand: justice and fairness are not things you can expect from a man like Tadeo Roces. You're not the only one who writes me here, Teban. Brujo has written to me of Betina's warnings. Roces is onto us, or in the very least, cottoning on to the fact that there are forces rising against him. He's so violently opposed reformation that he knows revolution is imminent. He's paranoid and scared. I am the easiest, most visible target for his rage, the best example he could make. And if that means I can take the heat off of our fellows, lead his eye away, then I'm willing to do it."

Teban's hands shook. He knew in his mind that this was all true, he knew from the beginning. He knew Tonyo was willing to die for his cause, as Teban was, but now faced with the possibility of one happening before the other, he was afraid. More afraid than he'd ever been his entire life.

For the first time since he was a child, he wanted to back down from a fight, if it meant keeping the man he loved safe.

"Stop it," Tonyo chided, shaking his head. "I can hear the gears turning in your head. I know what you're thinking, and you know as well as I that neither of us could survive the regret of abandoning our cause. Even for love," Tonyo sighed the last word against his lips.

"I just... I don't want to lose you," Teban whispered, knowing how pathetic he sounded. Tonyo kissed him again, hard and sweet and so full of love.

_"It's only a possibility. Not even I, who looks to the future every day, can predict it," Tonyo said reassuringly. "We know Roces will act, but perhaps we may luck out and live through the coming storm." He knocked on the wooden frame of the veranda's railing, and Teban laughed softly. "Perhaps he'll find some _other_ underhanded way to get what he wants. We should be ready for any eventuality." _

"That's why we need you around," Teban said, smiling into Tonyo's shoulder. "You can always see all possible outcomes."

"Oh yes," Tonyo teased, "you'd fall right apart without me."

Teban held him tighter, not acknowledging the joke that rang all too true.

 

_**Chapter 5** _

 

__"This is for the sake of those we have lost. Those who have suffered and died for the greed and apathy of others, of leaders who were meant to protect them. Of leaders who've failed them. We must fight for those who cannot, fight for those who wish to rise up but are too afraid alone."_ _

__And the Captain gave a mighty shout, assembling his army against tyranny, and led the charge._ _

 

__-An excerpt from Antonio y Karbonel's El capitan del corazon de hierro__

 

* * *

 

 

Four years after his exile, Antonio Eduardo y Karbonel, on the order of the Gobernador Heneral—like his father Huliardo before him—was executed by firing squad for treason against Spain.

One year later, on the anniversary of his death, the revolution began, ten bases of Spanish military and governmental operations attacked at once by organized armies, all bearing the name of the men and women who Gob. Hen. Tadeo Roces had been after since their founding:

Los Vengadores, there to avenge the death of their founder and the one who lit the flame of revolution in their hearts. The man many of them called friend.

The man their leader called beloved.

 

* * *

 

_  
_

Pedro Parquero was a mere sixteen years old when he first met the great Antonio y Karbonel. It was a year into the man's exile, and Pedro, a native of Dapitan, could not be more enamoured with the feats of engineering the man had accomplished in the short span of time he'd been there.

He was a shy boy, gentle, living only with his aged aunt after bandits took away his uncle and some cruel faction of the Guardia Civil took his parents away when he was just an infant.

The moment he opened his mouth to express interest in the water filtration system Señor Antonio set up, the man took him under his wing, more than happy to have what he called a prodigy to help him in his many, many endeavours.

"I'm getting along in age, you see, and I need a vigorous and youthful student to continue my good works here!" Señor Antonio had exclaimed, though there was this strange inflection in his voice, as though there were some other reason that he wasn't sharing, something personal Pedro was too afraid to ask.

Pedro was more than happy to learn from one so wise and bright, and Señor Antonio seemed thoroughly impressed with both his mind and his agile body, his ability to shimmy up trees and poles and even walls (if they were rough enough to find footholds) useful for when they were building something new or reinforcing something old.

"Like a monkey," Señor Antonio had said. "Or a spider! Yes! My little spider boy."

Pedro had huffed at being called a boy, and Señor Antonio conceded, "A spider-man, then."

Pedro had always considered himself a good boy (man, but his aunt called him good boy so often that the title held a different weight to him). He was not the sort of person to eavesdrop or to spy, but his penchant for climbing high places often put him in a position to see and sometimes hear things that others could not—private things, not meant for him to hear.

In this way he'd learned about affairs and secret romances, about how the high and mighty gentleman who lived in the villa near the sea pissed against the side of the church when he thought nobody was looking.

In this way, he learned about Esteban Rogero, and his relationship with Señor Antonio.

As well as the part he played in the whispered rumours that spoke of revolution against the Spanish government.

"I may have written of revolution in my books, Teban, but that is the last thing I want if there is another way. We should have kept pushing for reforms. Los Vengadores was never meant to become some shadowed army."

"We have little choice now, Tonyo. At every turn, even with every resource you or Carolina or any of your many friends from here or all the way from Europe, the reforms we've pushed for have been refused. Roces is a proud man whose hatred for anything he considers subversive or even remotely contrary to his power, and so long as he breathes, we cannot hope for change. We are pushing against a mountain, and we cannot wait for the man to die to see if we have a chance."

"Teban—"

"Tonyo."

Pedro coughed from his spot on the roof, but fortunately, neither man heard.

He peered down at them and saw the paler man kissing Señor Antonio's hand gently, the way he remembered his uncle once did to his aunt when he was still around.

"They never tell you what happens after a revolution," Tonyo said darkly. "Chaos, Teban. Chaos and bids for power. Something always goes wrong in the end."

"Possibility, Tonyo, is not certainty," Teban said. "And we are both certain, have been for years, that we have spent too long in the dark not to fight for the light, even if it's a flame that will burn us if we go too far."

Tonyo shook his head, sighing in a way that Pedro knew meant he was ceding the point.

"You always say you're no poet, and yet..." Tonyo said dryly.

"You bring it out of me," Teban said, the tension between them dissipating, at least for the time being.

When talk turned to quiet, then to sounds Pedro never thought he'd hear coming from his mentor, the young man took that as his cue to shimmy down the side of Tonyo's house and leave.

 

* * *

 

 

Pedro met Esteban Rogero again four years later, a few weeks after word reached his home about his mentor's execution.

He had cried into his aunt's shoulder for a day and a night, rocking himself like a child at the loss of a man he so admired and whom he loved like family, before bidding her farewell come morning. He boarded the first boat to Manila with the barest of necessities, as well as the leather-bound journal Señor Antonio had given him, filled to the brim with notes they'd both jotted down when they were working on project after project.

When he met Señor Rogero at the Karbonel household (for Señor Antonio had said to him, once, that he was always welcome to his home, and Pedro hoped beyond hope that this rang true even after he was gone), the man had embraced him like he was welcoming a son, and Pedro had cried all over again—though it seemed fitting, for the house was filled with men and women who were doing much the same, whether in the silent tears of the beautiful pale woman who wore a black veil who Pedro thought might be Señor Antonio's sister, or in the helpless sobs of the old, grey-haired mestiza who Pedro recognized as Señor Antonio's mother, Señora Maria.

Pedro had expressed interest in helping Señor Rogero in whatever he needed, but both knew he meant more than the affairs of his household, and his management of the docking ships at the port.

Señor Rogero took him in as a helper, and Pedro was introduced to his wife, who smiled a sad smile at him as her husband moved from one task to another, his eyes bright yet empty in the way sorrow and grief and numbness left a soul tired.

Pedro was taken into the fold, twenty years old and a fire lit in him as he met the people who his mentor called friend, those he knew only from the letters in English, French, German, and Dutch that Señor Antonio had received during his exile.

Europeans and Filipinos and Spaniards alike were gathered together under the cause, all ostensibly grieving for their good friend Antonio, and all part of those who would avenge him and the injustices brought down on his head.

One night after Pedro had settled into Señor Rogero's (Teban, he insisted, for Tonyo had loved him like a son and he would not allow such distance between them) household, Teban gave him a letter. It was thick and full in the bundle, wrapped in paper and tied together by twine. Pedro had opened it with his legs crossed on the bed he'd been provided, and out spilled schematics, sketches like Señor Antonio used to make on the spot, along with a journal that Pedro recognized as the one Señor Antonio used to note improvements he could make on their village while he lived there. There were little cartoons there as well, in a hand Pedro recognized as a combination of Señor Antonio's and Teban's, amusing little ones of them arguing while a little Pedro hung from a tree like a spider from a single thread, his eyes wide and mouth open in a gasp as he listened.

Pedro laughed, realizing he had not been so secretive as he thought, and dissolved once more into tears, taking care not to mar the precious pages.

Later when he found strength to look through them, he would see a beautifully rendered sketch of Señor Antonio's face in one of the journal's pages. It was by Teban's hand, and it was done quickly, with an ease of practice Pedro knew came from intimacy and familiarity, from a man who knew him inside and out. It captured Señor Antonio perfectly, looked as though he was in constant motion even if the drawing itself sat perfectly still on the page. It captured his spirit so thoroughly that Pedro tucked the journal against his chest and held it tight, as if he could hold onto the man who was no longer there as he did it.

 

* * *

 

 

 

The first attack had been a success. Betina reported to them that her father was furious, red in the face and unable just yet to act as he was bombarded with reports from his soldiers, as well as complaints from his subjects. The news would reach Spain soon, and Tadeo Roces would then be subject to the suspicions and accusations of his superiors.

Even around the vice that clamped down on his heart, Teban felt a surge of pride.

"Things are changing, Tonyo," he whispered.

A week later, Teban Rogero fled to the mountains after a report was received that identified him the instigator of the attack on the Manila base of Spanish military operations. Pedro Parquero (though nobody knew who the boy was at the time he'd come to live with them in the Rogero household) went with him. Pegay Cartera Rogero stayed behind to watch after the house, playing the part of a distraught and disgraced wife well, with the help of her good friend Natalya Kalasag Bautista, whose husband had disappeared as well.

It did not take long for the connection to be made between the Rogeros and the family of Antonio y Karbonel, but the good moral standing of Nicolas Kalasag and his very good friend, Alejandro Piero (a man of good standing among the Spanish elite) prevented the Guardia Civil from harassing them any further.

Teban was no longer the stick of the man he'd been, too hardened by days in the mountains to be anything but muscle and sinew. He knew if Tonyo had been around to see it, he would have said something of his Captain's great stature, something disparaging rather than admiring, but in a way that did not cut for all that they were familiar with each other's moods.

He missed him so much that it ached, but he had been wrong about how he would take Tonyo's death.

That Tonyo had been murdered by the very men they were fighting only gave Teban the will to go on, the drive to fight and fight until he could fight no longer.

Pegay was resilient, she was strong and self-sufficient, and though it pained him to think it, no matter that it was the truth they both acknowledged, she would be fine without him, and he was not so reluctant to die for his country (and for Tonyo, for the avenging of his beloved), even if it meant leaving her.

Still, before he'd left, he'd given something they'd both wished for when they first entered the marriage.

Before the year was done, Pegay bore a daughter (safe, Teban thought gratefully, to grow up without the suspicion of her father looming over her head). She wrote to Teban of a man she met, a Gabriel Honasan with dark skin where Teban had been pale, a man Teban knew from the docks, a soldier for the Spanish forces with a good grasp of languages, and a good, honest man. One he might have even counted a friend, though his fighting days were done.

Still, when the letters of warning came in French and German, something only Teban and a handful of others in hiding could understand, and certainly not the censors who looked through correspondences which passed in and out of the city, Teban knew he could trust the man the way Pegay seemed to.

Teban suggested to Pegay that she denounce him a dead man, marry Gabriel, throw suspicion off her and start anew. Pegay called him many foul names, reminding him it was her fault she was not fighting alongside them when she could wield a weapon same as the rest of them, better, even. She understood the importance of her role as their secret keeper and spy, mapping the goings-on in the city and watching for dangers that might come to the revolutionary faction. If she didn't think it were as important as it was, Teban knew she would have been by his side by now, fighting with him as one of his top lieutenants.

Out of respect for you, he doesn't court me, as much as I know he wishes to, Pegay wrote. I love him, perhaps not as much as you loved your Tonyo, but I desire him and am happy to have him around, and would perhaps grow to love him even more one day. But I will not denounce you dead until such time that you do die, whether it be in the next year or in the next fifty. You are my husband, my friend, my family, and you will always have me and my support.

Teban knew as well as she did that he was already on the path that would lead him to death, throwing himself into every battle to prevent the loss of other lives but exacerbating the possibility of his own. Still, with every victory and defeat where he was able to limp back to camp with injuries that would only last him a fortnight, his reputation only grew.

Even those who hadn't a revolutionary bone in them whispered about the Captain, the symbol, the man who was a storybook character made real. The symbol of the revolution.

Teban hated it, though he knew the merit of being the kind of man who could command loyalty from every one of his troops despite many of them only hearing of him, never meeting him.

Teban hated that the man who started it all, his Tonyo, was forgotten for the lie that was the Captain, who was fighting for his country no longer because he wished to, but because it was what Tonyo would have wanted.

Teban hated that, if given the choice, he would have given it all up just to get his beloved back.

For though nobody could see it but those closest to him, Teban's fire had gone out long ago, lost to the ringing shots of a firing squad, lost in the scent of gunpowder and blood.

 

* * *

 

 

 

"They want me to what?" Teban said, frowning. Bokoy looked near murderous, and Carolina stood aside with her hand on the pommel of her sword, looking calmer but infinitely more dangerous.

"Cede power and leadership to Señor Alejandro," Brujo said tiredly. He was always tired these days, though more from his many bouts of righteous anger as he fought alongside them (his calculating mind a blessing on the battlefield) than anything else. "The man has done much for the cause, and his own men, led by Romualdo, have convinced others that he would make a better figurehead."

"Punyeta!" Bokoy spat. Teban said nothing, and Carolina chimed in, "Teban is the symbol of the revolution. All are willing to follow the Captain of the Iron Heart into war. Señor Alejandro is admirable, but not nearly so compelling. We might give him power over certain factions, make him a leader as well, but to cede power to him entirely would be impossible."

"That's what I thought as well," said Brujo, "but of that matter, Neneng wishes to speak with you. She says she will meet at your homestead in a week's time, when she goes to visit your distraught wife, whom you have abandoned," he said, sounding amused by the end. His tone turned serious as he added, "Be careful, Teban. As Carolina says, you are our figurehead. If something happens to you—"

"I know, my friend," Teban said. He didn't sound as tired as Brujo, but his exhaustion was carried not in his body but in his soul, where nobody could see.

He went with Tomas, the young son of one of his trusted fighters, a woman who the Guardia Civil had taken to calling the witch. Tomas was only sixteen, but quick on his feet and tenacious and heroic, and Teban wished he could spare him the bloodshed, but would not stifle his spirit when such a thing was what he wished to see grow in the youth.

When he arrived at his home, well-disguised with his hair coloured darker and his skin tanned from his long days out in the sun (and much bigger than he'd been when he left), he was first met at the secret door that he'd carved (with Tonyo's guidance in the engineering) behind a dresser against the back wall not by Neneng, but by her father, Nicolas Kalasag.

"Teban. It's good to see you well," Kulas greeted, and Teban inclined his head, shaking the man's hand firmly. He never knew where he stood with Kulas as Tonyo's stepfather, though they'd been genial as employer and worker. They had, when Tonyo had still been alive, acted not with the affection between father and son, but with the sort of rapport Teban expected from two intelligent men who both respected and suspected each other.

"The man helped raise Neneng, taught her all he knows. He hides, he lies, he misdirects, and he does it all perfectly. I admire him for it, but you would be a fool to trust him completely. His secrets have secrets," Tonyo had said once. Teban thought he was exaggerating, at the time, but the way Kulas had so skilfully evaded suspicion from the government this long only corroborated Tonyo's view of him.

"Alejandro has spoken to me of his intention to ease your burdens as leader," Kulas said, and Teban sighed, sitting in his favourite chair while he listened to Pegay and Neneng gossip loudly in the front room.

"It has been discussed," Teban allowed, gesturing for Kulas to take a seat as well. "Neither Carolina nor Bokoy think it wise, though Carolina and Brujo believe that having him as one of our leaders would be sufficient compromise."

"Give him nothing, Teban" Kulas said. Teban's brows rose to his darkened hairline.

"I don't understand," Teban said cautiously. "Is he not your trusted friend? You yourself vouched for his character when his men first joined Los Vengadores."

"Yes indeed. Alejandro and I have been friends for many years. Spoke of the same reforms and the idea of revolution you and Tonyo did, along with Tonyo's father, Huliardo. We may not have formed a faction such as yours, but we planted the seeds, nonetheless, watched them grow over the years. All but Huliardo," Kulas said grimly. He clasped his hands together firmly. "Do you know why I married Maria?"

Teban shook his head, and Kulas continued.

"I married her because I wanted to protect her. Because I wanted to watch after her and her son. For Huliardo's sake, I wanted to make sure Tonyo grew up without the Spanish authorities breathing down his neck. And for that, I needed Alejandro's help. Alejandro is a man of good standing, much better than my cobbled together enterprise. He even has the trust of Tadeo Roces himself, if you can believe it. Having such a man on our side is a boon."

Kulas sighed.

"Or so I thought. But recent events have led me to consider the possibility that Alejandro may not be the man I thought he was."

He levelled his gaze at Teban. "Give him nothing, Teban. See what happens. The Alejandro I know would not retaliate, would take it in good grace. But if he is as good a liar as I, to stay safe and unmolested this long, then I do not believe he would take the rejection lying down."

"Kulas," Teban said stonily, "I will not play games of intrigue and power for the sake of your curiosity. I must lead my people, I must win this war we've been fighting."

Kulas was silent for a long moment, but his gaze kept Teban's mouth shut until the older man spoke once more.

"I believe he is the reason Tonyo was executed," he said hoarsely (and how could he sound so hoarse, when the man had spoken so steady and clear the whole time Teban had known him).

Teban's heart dropped heavy into the pit of his stomach. He couldn't breathe. The shadows burst from the sides of his vision. He couldn't hear. He was aware of his fists clenching, nails digging marks into his palm, and as though he was watching from afar, he heard himself say, "Why... why would you say that?"

"Secrets, Teban," Kulas said. "There were many of them, shared among the few, when Tonyo was still in Dapitan. Only those we trusted the most knew those secrets. The names, the members, the plans. Everything. And I, fool that I was, told you to trust the man who was the only one who could have known the things the Guardia Civil knew when they came to arrest Tonyo's father."

"So you're telling me the man I've put my trust in the last year is the reason both Tonyo and his father are dead," Teban said. He heard a crack, and realized that one of his hands had squeezed with such force that he broke the wood rest of his favourite chair. Kulas eyed the fractured wood warily, but nodded.

"That he seems to be planning now to overthrow you in your position as leader only solidifies my suspicions. He is one of my oldest friends, the last of the few I had, and you must understand that I do not say this lightly. Watch yourself around Alejandro Piero, Teban. I couldn't bear to lose another son like that."

Kulas' voice shook at the last word, though he made a valiant attempt to hide it.

They clasped hands once more, gripping tight and too long. "What do I do?" Teban said, his own voice unsteady.

"Live," Kulas said. "For if you die now, you will only give Piero what he wants."

Teban nodded, making his promise as Neneng finally emerged. He didn't know how long she'd been listening, if at all (though Teban knew Neneng enough to know she probably heard everything), but when he got up, she allowed him to rest his head on her shoulder as she held him, as though a mother with an oversized child. He hadn't realized he was crying until he could no longer breathe through the tears.

 

**Chapter 6**

  
_  
_

__"Sit still!"_ _

__"Ugh, but this is so boring!"_ _

__"Stop it, Tonyo! Come on. Please? For me?"_ _

__"Hmm... Fine. But only for you, my love."_ _

__Aside, Brujo snorted loudly, and Teban could feel his ears redden, though by now he thought Tonyo's friends were much too used to his antics when they were together for them to judge._ _

__"Don't worry, Teban. The only reason he sat still when I drew him was because somebody had been discussing with him the mechanics of a dirigible for a whole hour. Even then, he fidgeted terribly. He's like a child, that way."_ _

__"Stop those filthy lies, Brujo. Teban, don't listen to them. I'm perfectly capable of behaving when given the right incentive."_ _

__"I wonder what that incentive might be," Rody said loudly, and Bokoy wolf-whistled. "Surely not Catholic indulgences."_ _

__"Indulgences, certainly. Catholic? Not at all," Tonyo said, winking. Teban blushed fully then, throwing an unused brush at Tonyo's head. "Sit still!"_ _

__"I'll be still when I die!" Tonyo exclaimed, and Teban had laughed, long and hard, at the truth of it."__

 

* * *

 

 

"How can we fight when we're divided down our ranks?" Teban said, his brow furrowed so deep that Pedro feared it would stay that way.

"Conflicts of interests can be handled so long as everybody still wants the same thing," Pedro said, then faltered. "That's what... I think that's what Señor Tonyo would have said."

Teban looked startled, but smiled, his brow softening. He put his hand on Pedro's head, which Pedro knew was more for himself than because of Pedro's actions (he would have railed against being treated like a child, if Teban wasn't so sad, if he didn't respect the man so thoroughly), and sighed.

"It should have been me," said Teban. "If I'm supposed to be this great symbol everybody wishes to follow. I should have died. I should have been martyred, and Tonyo should have led. He would have been smart, he would have known how to handle Alejandro Piero, how to make it so that the machine worked even with mismatched parts. I should have been the one that died by firing squad."

"But you didn't," Pedro said, tiredly. Teban looked at him intently, thoughtfully, as if he had never heard those words before in his life. Pedro went on. "I think... even if you're right, even if you should have died and Señor Tonyo would have known how to handle this better, that didn't happen. You're the one who's here, Teban. Whether you live or die, we need you to point us, all of us, in the right direction. Like Señor Tonyo said," he pressed a finger to Teban's broad chest, "you're the captain. No machine can function without a guide, a navigator, and you're it. Even in a storm like Alejandro Piero, you ought to be able to find a place to land."

Teban laughed, hearty and hoarse, making Pedro jump.

"It is no wonder he loved you," Teban said, after a while. "You are... if we could have had a future. If we could have, in some brave newer world, had a son that was both the best of us and someone entirely new, someone wiser and stronger than either of us."

"To be the son of Antonio y Karbonel... now that would have been a trial," Pedro said, laughing even through the clenching of his heart. If he listened hard enough, he thought he could hear Señor Antonio laughing from beyond, as well.

 

* * *

 

 

The betrayal began (perhaps it had begun long ago, but it was made clear then) when Nicolas Kalasag was taken in for suspicion of treason, with somebody providing evidence of his deliveries of arms and supplies to the mountains where Teban and his people were hiding out.

They could do nothing without showing their hand, though their friend, the blind lawyer Mattias, would tell them the progress of the case through letters with code punched into the paper that one felt instead of read. Pedro had gotten adept at breaking Mattias' code, and they had become something like friends in between the chaos of Teban making battle strategies and sending runners out to coordinate with other factions.

Pedro, along with the fleet-footed Tomas and the ugly, scarred man with a sense of humour who had taken a strange liking to Pedro, would travel through secret paths in the mountains and send deliveries in codes or other languages to ensure all were united in their efforts.

Romualdo and his men seemed wary after Teban had refused their leader his request, but still followed orders, watched closely and subtly by Pedro himself, and sometimes when he came to visit, Barton, who looked just about ready to pin them to the wall with his arrows.

What happened to Nicolas seemed but a minor inconvenience for all the man's calm, and even when faced with Tadeo Roces himself, Nicolas only answered that he knew not of Teban or his whereabouts, and was only a man running a business, transacting under the law. "I have no concern where or for what my deliveries are used for, and I make too many every day to keep track of them all."

Roces then demanded invoices and the details of these deliveries, to which Nicolas handed him false copies, forged by Neneng's hand, to throw him off their scent.

Nicolas was released eventually, when his friends in high places began making a fuss and the people who worked under him brought the docks to a standstill.

He was shot walking down the street to meet his daughter.

 

* * *

 

 

"Roces needs to die."

"That's not how we're doing this," Teban said firmly. Neneng pointed one of her knives at him, her jaw tight.

"He would only be a martyr to his own people, Neneng. You know that as well as I do. The people are with us, they're working with us, we must make this happen on their power."

"We are fighting to end the fight, Teban, or have you forgotten that? If we can stop the bloodshed, if we can stop any more of our people from dying, wouldn't that be better?" Neneng said quietly, but not softly, not bearing any sort of artifice. Cold words, cold eyes, for a cold woman, through and through.

"Don't you want revenge for Tonyo? Isn't that why he called it Los Vengadores?" she then said, before Teban could respond.

"It's not what Tonyo would have wanted," Teban said, his resolve shaken. He was so tempted to take Neneng up on her offer, and an offer it was. He knew her, and knew that there was so much of her that nobody but her father saw.

"Tonyo got himself killed," Neneng said cruelly. Teban didn't hit her, but it was a close thing. After a moment, the fight seemed to drain out of her, and she reached for Teban's hand, dropping the knife on the table and clutching him tightly.

"Do what Tonyo asked. Win us a decisive victory."

"And you?"

Neneng only smiled, sharp still, as all her smiles were, but sad.

 

* * *

 

 

The last attack happened at the capital. Teban had gathered men and women together from the closest factions, and were able to recruit more from the farmers and villagers who lived on the outskirts, who felt the cruelties of their Spanish masters much too deeply.

Teban, Carolina, and Jaime Rodrigo led the charge, three soldiers tall and strong, attacking the walled city of Intramuros and breaking down its doors. The people—their people, stood aside, ostensibly in fear but cheering the whole way.

The win was decisive, and though they knew there were still yet more battles to be fought in the many cities outside Manila, it was a victory that was celebrated throughout the country.

It was said Tadeo Roces fought to his last breath, and was killed in the conflict. Nobody said a word of how they found him poisoned in his room, pale and stiff and dead and in no position to lead his men in the defence.

 

* * *

 

 

__"They never tell you what happens after a revolution. Chaos, Teban. Chaos and bids for power. Something always goes wrong in the end."__

 

* * *

 

 

Pedro was intercepted on his way to the meeting of the Los Vengadores by the madman with many scars, who had no name but who insisted Pedro call him Wade.

"Like in a river?" Pedro had asked once, to which Wade simply waved his hand and laughed, like he had a joke in mind that he could share with nobody else.

"You can't go to that meeting," Wade had warned with uncharacteristic seriousness, and Pedro was inclined to listen to him just for that, but he ploughed on, knowing that Teban would be there and that he needed to support his friend and leader.

"Why not, Wade?" Pedro sighed as the man kept trying to sidetrack him.

"The voices say it's a trap," Wade said, and Pedro sighed, long-suffering, and patted Wade on the arm (the man always seemed startled when Pedro initiated physical contact, though he was no leper despite his frightening appearance).

"It's important, Wade. I need to be there for Teban."

"Tell him it's a trap, too," Wade said quickly, and Pedro raised an eyebrow at him. "Tell him, tell him Piero wants something and he's willing to go through our dear Captain to get it. Oh, I was about to say dead Captain. Which is what he'll be when Piero gets his hands on him."

Pedro felt a chill run down his spine.

"Why would you say that, Wade?" Pedro said through clenched teeth. "Where did the voices hear it from?"

"In the trees, up above, while Romualdo and his men drank and pissed and laughed," Wade said, and Pedro broke into a sprint, startling Wade into following.

"Pedro, wait! Wait!"

He turned the corner, into the alley they used to enter the house in secret, and was stopped by a pistol to his temple, primed and ready to shoot.

A finger pressed down on the trigger right in front of Pedro's eyes, but before he could react, another gunshot rang through the air and the man (one of Piero's men, one of the men Pedro had fought beside in the revolution) was dead. Pedro's ears rang and his heartbeat was all he could hear, until he felt rough, scarred hands on his arms and he was pulled into sitting, Wade running a hand over his face and through his hair to check for injury.

"We have to tell Teban," Pedro gasped, his hands shaking uncontrollably. Wade gripped his arm and helped him up, and they left the area of the compound, unaware of the eyes watching them from above on one of the rooftops.

From his perch, Barton cleaned his pistol, his hawk's eyes tracking Teban's ward's movements until they were finally far enough away.

 

* * *

 

 

If that day had not been the anniversary of the day Teban had received his first letter from Tonyo, he would have been at Piero's house already, always earliest to meetings for the group he'd led since the first.

Instead, he was at the grove behind the Karbonel household, sitting by the still water. Remembering until the sky darkened, hidden away until it was safe. Pedro found him hours past, warning him of Piero's betrayal.

Even long after his death, Tonyo was still raising Teban up, preserving him in ways that he never could have anticipated.

 

* * *

 

 

“What do we do?” Carolina wondered. “This betrayal cannot stand, but our position even after victory is still so tenuous. With Spain making to trade us like a commodity to America, we cannot take the stresses of in-fighting.”

“Piero is a snake. Stepping on him would not be fighting, it would be justice,” Bokoy growled.

“Piero has many followers, and America is moving into the territory. We can either fight Piero and leave ourselves vulnerable or work with him to fight what's coming,” Teban said. “This is politics as much as it is war, and Piero is a politician, as you said, Bokoy.”

Bokoy snorted, but his anger turned sober and cold as he nodded in agreement.

“I was not made for any of this,” Teban murmured. “And I'm so tired. Piero, for all he hates me, makes wiser decisions when it comes to his people. “I wanted to die, all those days I fought” he added, and both Bokoy and Carolina hung their heads, grieved but unsurprised. “I lived because there was something to fight for and people who needed me, but I' m so tired.”

Teban paused, willing both of them to understand, both people whom he trusted wholeheartedly.

“I have a plan.”

 

* * *

 

 

__The cell was cold stone, but it was not bare. Tonyo had a bed, a table with implements to write with. The walls were filled with designs, letters littered the table both sealed in envelopes and crumpled or spread out as though Tonyo had tried to read five at once._ _

__Teban spent every day there with him, but on some days they barely spoke, didn't even touch—Teban simply sat on the bed while Tonyo teetered back on one of his chair's rickety legs, mind whirring with all he could get out before—_ _

_“ _I never wanted revolution,” Tonyo said suddenly. “And now I'm to die for it.”__

__Teban opened his mouth to speak, but Tonyo cut him off with a raised hand. “I don't regret it. It was long in coming, and I was prepared. Most of what I've thought up has been implemented in Dapitan, and there are other things I've left in notebooks for Pedro. Or on these walls. Make sure they don't burn them or throw them away when I'm gone.”_ _

__Teban had nothing to say to that, and Tonyo tapped his fingers on the table in an arrhythmic beat, filling the silence between them._ _

_“ _I don't want to die, Teban,” Tonyo said, as suddenly as everything he seemed to say these days.__

_“ _I could take you away,” Teban said just as quickly. His heart was leaping in his chest for beats, but the hope was empty, if it was there at all.__

_“ _Oh, I'm sure you could,” Tonyo murmured. “You'd knock the bars out and shimmy right down the side of the wall with me on your back and spirit me away into the night if I gave the word. But then the people wouldn't get what they needed.”__

_“ _They don't need a martyr, Tonyo,” Teban said sharply.__

_“ _No, but they need a symbol,” Tonyo said. “When we change the world, we can't be people anymore, Teban. We are symbols. My writing touched you long before I did, and I never would have met you if I had not been symbolic of the ideals of the people, of freedom. People die, but symbols live on. I, the heart of the revolution,” he continued, gesturing to himself. “And you, the Captain, who will lead the charge. The change.”__

_“ _And when I am tired?” Teban wondered. “When I no longer wish to be Captain? When I am to return to being a man, instead of a symbol?”__

__Tonyo closed his eyes, looking away. “Do you really think that'll ever happen?”_ _

__It was the cruellest thing Tonyo had ever said to him.__

 

* * *

 

 

Teban stood before the compound, in front of its illustrious owner, Alejandro Piero.

“You tried to kill my ward,” Teban said first.

“I don't know what you mean,” Piero said, his face a mask of cool certainty.

“Pedro Parquero,” Teban said. “A young man with hair brown in the sunlight, who can climb to rooftops and the top of trees like no man I've ever met. I see him as like a son to me, and your men put a gun to his temple.”

“And those men are dead,” Piero said. “While the young man you take to be your son lives. You should count your blessings, Captain, for a son and life are grand ones.”

“Believe it or not, that is not what I came here for, Alejandro,” Teban said, his stony face morphing into a look of some joviality that seemed to knock Piero for a loop.

The man looked intrigued, tilting his head to show he was listening.

“I have a proposition for you.”

 

* * *

 

 

According to history, The Captain disappeared sometime before American forces invaded the country.

Foul play was suspected, but Los Vengadores was too caught up in the war against another colonialist force to truly grieve the loss.

Alejandro Piero, for all that he'd wished to be leader, could do nothing but support the one his people had chosen to lead them in the charge—Carolina de Vera, who had become to them and their enemies the famed Capitan Maravilla, the soldier who, even without the numbers or weaponry to match the American invaders, led her fellow Filipinos into many victories.

Odes were written to how the red of blood shone in the gold of her hair, and though not as loud as when The Captain of the Iron Heart led the charge against the Spaniards, the cries of support and love for their Marvel of a Captain echoed throughout the country.

All too soon, even those cries died down when Carolina disappeared much the same as Esteban Rogero had, and all signs pointed to the betrayer Piero, who had vied for power since the beginning.

Still, Piero took power as he bent to the wills of the Americans. The country lost the freedom it had just newly won.

Nothing changed.

 

Well, that wasn't quite true.

 

Out in the provinces, as Americans burned crops and terrorized helpless villagers, torturing men into revealing the whereabouts of the guerillas who were killing their own, shadowed figures crept into the villages and their camps and methodically destroyed their weaponry in ways that would not be obvious to them until they fired and the guns would set them aflame or explode in their hands. Throats were slit, Americans wiped out in the quiet and dead of night while war raged on and Piero worked for compromise in the city.

Nobody saw the nimble young man on the rooftops or the creeping, cloth-masked figure with scarred hands and arms gripping bolos in the shadows or the man whose hair was blond in the moonlight, but if the Americans ever noticed some of their forces had never gotten in contact, they would have found their men dead, burning in the outskirts of villages like the crops they'd destroyed to starve those in the area.

But with all focus on the new Captain or on Piero greasing hands, stories of the secret wars fought outside the capital were lost to the wayside.

History remembered them only in the stories told as gossip and legend, passed down among villages in individual, personal histories.

The young man like a spider kissing the scarred hands after they'd choked a soldier to death after the American had near drowned a child, interrogating him for his knowledge of guerilla spies.

The man with light hair asking for a picture of the dead hero Antonio y Karbonel that he'd seen hanging on the wall of the house he'd saved from being burned down.

A woman soon joining them, hair soot (dyed) dark but brows naturally yellow as Piero seceded power to American authorities.

These were stories not written in history books, that survived the passing of years regardless _._

 

* * *

 

 

__Alejandro Piero was about to lay down to sleep for the night when he felt a blade press down against the soft, sagging skin of his throat._ _

__"You intend to make deals with the Americans," said the quiet, calm voice of Esteban Rogero by his ear._ _

__Piero swallowed, but his voice was steady when he answered, "It is practical. Do you think our people could survive another war after suffering from the last?”_ _

_“ _They will fight regardless. But I do not truly believe you want to protect our people as much as your own interests."__

__Piero laughed despite himself, despite the blade at his throat kissing his skin with every heave._ _

__"How long have you lived this way, Teban, thinking that everything in the world can only be one thing? Yes, I'm protecting my interests. But why does that mean I do not care for this country? I'm not suicidal or self sacrificing like you are, but I care about my people just as much. You are too rigid in your thinking, you've always been. It's kept you from having the vision and greatness Antonio had."_ _

__The grip on the blade tightened, Piero could hear it, close as it was._ _

__"You know I'm right. He always saw everything, like it was a board full of chess pieces and he could see where every single move would lead. I only have a fraction of his foresight, but even I know we cannot face a nation as powerful as America and find a favourable outcome."_ _

__Teban withdrew the knife, but Piero knew better than to move when he'd just struck one of Teban's biggest nerves._ _

__"So you intend to lead the country through the hardship that is making nice with our next slavers?" Teban said, disgust dripping from every word._ _

__"You've wanted to die since Antonio died," Piero said carelessly, "but do not think that your compatriots want the same thing. They follow you, they_ _**follow. You.** _ _And would into the jaws of death if you asked. But is that what Antonio would have wanted? To fight just so you all could die bloody on a battlefield? No. Antonio wanted change. And this may not be he wanted, what anybody inspired by his love for his country wanted, but rest assured, the Americans won't give a care about what we've fought for, they will rain hell on us until we stop. And we need to do something than ineffectually hit back."_ _

__"Make deals to win the country favours," said Teban, and Piero nodded._ _

__"Something I have experience in. Something you are too invested in fighting to do. This is a war we cannot fight on all fronts, and there is a time and place for everything. You are a relic, Teban. You may be the captain that inspired many, but your time as a symbol is long past.”_ _

__There was silence for a time, but just as Piero thought his words got through, Teban said, in quiet, even tones that Piero had never heard from the man before, “I may no longer be a symbol, but I can still be a man. I can still fight.”_ _

__He smiled, a wry thing, full of renewed determination and an infinite, terrifying sort of finality._ _

_“ _You are still useful yet, Piero. But you are an old man, and nobody will bat an eyelash at an old man dying in his sleep. You have a job to do, and if you do not do this job, if you do not prove to be the man you claim to be, who loves this country enough to do terrible things for its sake, then you will be written off as another old man simply passed away in the night.”__

_“ _You wouldn't,” Piero said, fear chilling his bones.__

_“ _The problem with being a symbol, Piero, is that the man underneath is often overlooked.”__

__He stepped closer, levelling his gaze with Piero's._ _

_“ _I would,” he said, slowly and clearly. “But even if I wouldn't, there is a woman whose father you crippled, and she is much more eager than I to see you depart from this earth. And my way is more peaceful than hers.”__

__Piero was silent as Teban Rogero made his way to the window. He thought to lock all his windows from now on despite the heat, but knew the man would only find another way in. He had a reputation for a reason, after all._ _

_“ _Do not let them believe they can cheat us out of all we deserve. Surely you can achieve that, wise snake that you are,” said Teban, and Piero nodded his assent.__

_“ _Carolina will be Captain now. I do not wish to be a symbol of what we cannot achieve, what's been stolen from us by these Americans even now. But I will fight, in the shadows, while you fight for what we will have when the dust settles.”__

_“ _I do believe this is the first we've agreed on anything in a long time,” Piero said slowly. Teban shot him a glare.__

_“ _You wanted to have me and my ward killed. You were instrumental in Huliardo's death, and in Tonyo's. That you are the only one who can play this long and twisted game is the only reason I don't choke you with your own pillow right now.”__

_“ _Rest assured, so long as they fight our enemies and not me, your people will be safe,” Piero said gravely.__

_“ _You are in no position to be making threats,” Teban said, but Piero shook his head. “I am not my men, Teban. This is not a threat, but a warning. Their loyalty makes them dangerous, and though they would not harm me, I do not control their every move.”__

__Teban nodded, to show he understood, but would not give ground to Piero's machinations, if against any of them._ _

_“ _Why did you hand Huliardo over to the Spaniards?”__

_“ _That was a shame of mine. Self-preservation, mostly. If it weren't him, it would have been me or Nicolas.”__

_“ _Kulas cannot walk now because of you.”__

_“ _Yet he still lives to help you in your endeavours.”__

_“ _And what did Tonyo do that so threatened you?”__

_“ _Oh, Captain. Nothing at all. We needed a martyr. A_ _ **symbol.**_ _Tonyo thought the same as I did, didn't he? I think he, of all of us, was relieved to know how much his death would mean to this country."__

__Piero's finger was broken right in front of his eyes since “We mustn't break your jaw, for how else could you spin your lies?”_ _

 

* * *

 

__And though it never found itself written down, never passed into the fleeting immortality of textbook history, the fight went on.__

 

* * *

 

 

_**Chapter 7** _

 

_People Power Monument, November 2016_

 

Steve Rogers laughed every time another car honked at them in passing, raising the sign higher, one that just about amounted to “PLUNDERER, DICTATOR, MURDERER, NOT A HERO. HONK IF YOU AGREE.” Even if there were only a handful of them standing under the shadow of the personified motherland breaking her chains and raising her fists to the sky, the passers by who would roll down windows to salute them or give them a series of loud and enthusiastic honks as they passed on their way to work.

An expensive looking car pulled up on the side of the road that Steve eyed warily, until a young man about his age rolled the window down and gave him a charming little grin.

“Didn't this happen last Friday?” said the man, gesturing widely to the signs and the monument itself.

Steve shrugged. “Far as I'm concerned, it's still happening.”

“Lemme guess—UP student?” the man said, and Steve raised a single eyebrow, before sighing and saying, “Fine arts.”

“Now see, I got that vibe,” the man teased, but one more look over and his smile became a touch warmer, more genuine and more concerned. “You guys good for food? Water? I could get you those fancy reversible umbrellas on Ateneo Trade—”

“We're fine,” Steve interrupted, smiling wider this time. “Might need to replenish water later, and it's gonna get sunny come noon, but we've got umbrellas and sunscreen. Could use an extra hand for one of those signs, though.”

The man's smile turned apologetic, before he perked up just a little. “I've got work,” he began, and Teban nodded understandingly—most people did, he didn't blame them for living their lives, especially when they showed support however they could—“But lemme get a picture, spread the word. And I can come back later, if you're still here in the evening.”

Steve shrugged with his whole body, a wide, encompassing gesture copying that of the mother country above as he said, “We'll be here all week.”

The man laughed, raising a fist in support before raising his expensive looking phone to snap a picture.

“Gonna get you a hundred shares at the end of the day, just you wait,” he said, and Teban laughed, waving the promise away but raising a hand appreciatively nonetheless.

“Wait!” Teban said, just as the man was pulling out. “What's your name!?”

“Tony!” he called back, winking from behind a pair of shades he seemed to have conjured out of nowhere.

“Steve!” Steve returned, feeling an odd sense of loss as he watched him go, coupled with hope to see him again soon, if his promises were anything to go by.

 

* * *

 

 

__It was their last night, and Tonyo was afraid. He had put all his affairs in order, made sure his family would be taken care of after dragging promise after promise out of Kulas' lips. They had never been quite the father and son Tonyo had pictured when his mother remarried, but he was great and strong from years of labour, and his arms were warm and his chest solid when they embraced._ _

_“ _I've said some terrible things to Teban that I cannot take back tonight,” Tonyo said, handing the man a letter. “So I entrust this to you, until such time it will be fit for him to read.”__

_“ _And when will that time be?” Kulas questioned, raising the brow of his scarred eye.__

__Tonyo seemed to falter for only a moment, before steeling his resolve._ _

_“ _I told him that he would never be a man again. That he would always be a symbol, until the day he died. That that was the price we paid for change—not to be men, but to be beyond men, to be like machines that moved the country forward and not our own selfish selves. But I was wrong to say that. It was cruel. I also know that my stubborn Teban will prove me wrong, simply because that is his nature. When that happens, when he is once more a man instead of the Captain I've made him to be, give this to him.”__

__Kulas made the last of his promises, kissing Tonyo's brow almost harshly before they parted._ _

__Next inside his cell was Neneng, who had him sit while she settled himself into his lap, her head under his chin._ _

_“ _We could still spirit you away,” she offered, her voice steady, almost light and teasing. She was so good at the artifice that if Tonyo didn't know his sister so well, he might have almost believed she didn't really care. But she did, she cared more than anybody could ever understand, and he loved her for it.__

_“ _You and Teban are the same,” Tonyo sighed into her hair. “Such heroism. Such grand, adventurous hearts.”__

__Neneng snorted, but did not say a word against him._ _

_“ _I will stay, and I will face my fate as I must. Many will watch me die, and that will spark the flame.”__

_“ _There are only so many flames that can be sparked for revolutions that will eventually fall,” said another, and Tonyo hadn't even realized Barton was there until he stepped out of the shadows. Tonyo shook his head at him, but Barton looked no less serious.“We need you here.”__

_“ _You've always been a cynic, little brother,” Tonyo said.__

_“ _And you've always been too loud and too idealistic for your own good,” Barton said harshly. “Revolutions fail, Tonyo. They always do. This one will be no different.”__

__Tonyo waved at him to sit with both his siblings, and Barton seemed reluctant to come over, but did anyway. He sat at Tonyo's feet, for the cot could not manage the weight of all three of them, especially not Barton, who was more muscle than Tonyo had ever achieved in his lifetime._ _

_“ _I'm not saying you're wrong,” Tonyo said, running a hand through Barton's short hair. “And I never wanted revolution in the first place. But they happen when those who oppress us do not relent, do not give us what we deserve as people. We fight because they do not yield. We fight because every step forward has been a struggle, and if we don't fight for the next step we will only be pushed back. And even in failure, a revolution is always, always, a step toward change. For better or for worse. And I trust the people I'm leaving behind more than anybody in the world to make that change a good one.”__

__Barton grabbed his hand in a tight grip, one that almost hurt, until he laced their fingers together, the grip just as tight but no longer painful—only desperate, as the younger man laid his head on Tonyo's knee, pressing his eyes against Tonyo's thigh like that could hide the sting of angry tears._ _

_“ _Why do you have to leave us?” Neneng whispered, and they sat like that for a while, in silence and kinship.__

 

* * *

 

 

“Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.”

“Yeah, alright, okay, don't pull my arm off,” Tony said, swatting at Steve and glaring when he only smiled in faux serenity. “See, I knew it. You're secretly an asshole and everybody's fallen for your nice guy act for way too long. And reading the quote off the glass of a display doesn't make you Gandhi.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “Gandhi was not a good guy,” he muttered, and Tony patted his arm soothingly.

“Come on,” Tony said, ''What're we here for? Let's get a bit of history in us. I'm doing a feature on their newly opened Martial Law exhibit, let's fire up social media with why we shouldn't let criminals like the Marcoses keep coming back into power.”

Tony hadn't been joking about the hundred shares he'd promised Steve two weeks back, the first time they'd met. Turned out he was Tony Stark, one of the most famous bloggers in the country, a guy who consistently pushed social awareness into the eyeline of Pinoy millennials on facebook and twitter (and sometimes tumblr, but the less said about that, the better), and the hundred shares was cake for him. It was now up to a thousand, and growing.

Tony had kept his promise to return with supplies and a mini news crew (ie, a couple of media graduates with expensive-looking recording equipment) from a more well-known independent news site run by his friends Pepper and Rhodey. They met again after that for the massive rally that happened on Friday and the Saturday that followed. But the fight still hadn't stopped, and neither had Steve and Tony given up on the push.

“I love this place,” Tony said, gesturing around the museum. “Don't get me wrong, I lose my shit over new tech like nobody's business—comes with being an engineer at heart—but history? Look where we end up without it. Back to the absolutely fucked up beginning.”

“You don't see me arguing,” Steve said agreeably.

“And you do so like to argue,” Tony teased, slipping his arm into the crook of Steve's elbow and dragging him up away from the exhibit they were supposed to be featuring. “Come on, Pepper and Rhodey aren't due to arrive for another thirty minutes, we've got time. I wanna show you my favorite part of the whole thing.”

“Let me guess, the gold exhibit?” Steve said, smirking.

“I say I like red and gold the one time—”

“I mean what kind of color scheme even is that?”

“Well excuse me, mister art student. Wait, here, we're here.”

Steve blinked up at the display he hadn't been expecting to see at all, PAMBANSANG BAYANI, which had features on two heroes rather than the one, with all the contention from people about it. So there before them, one with his cheek propped up against thumb and forefinger in a casual but thoughtful pose and the other looking about ready to march into battle.

Underneath the portraits were placards bearing the names Antonio Eduardo y Karbonel and Esteban Granada Rogero in gold script.

“They were in love, you know,” Tony said suddenly, and Steve blinked at him in surprise. “Lotta people get mad at me for saying it, like it's some insult, but it's not like it wasn't obvious. The letters they wrote, the ones they were able to recover, they made discussions about social change sound like flirting on Tinder. Okay, no, let's pretend I didn't say that, something classier than Tinder. I got nothing.”

“I kind of thought so too,” Steve said slowly. “But it's not really something anybody can prove, so I guess scholars didn't think it'd work for classroom learning.”

Tony snorted. “Yeah, because the dozen something women he happened to flirt with over the course of years were important enough to warrant a mention, but the love of his life gets relegated to ally and maybe friend. Sure.”

They moved down the line, until Tony stood in front of a younger looking man with a sword at his hip and a weary, worldly expression on his handsome face.

“That,” Tony said, pointing to the man, “is my great granddad.”

Steve's eyes went wide in surprise and awe. “Pedro Parquero, the Spider-man, was your great grandfather?”

“You have no idea how many stories granddad used to tell of his father. Especially when he was drinking. He was a happy drunk, and a talkative one. Learned a shitton you're never gonna hear from scholars,” Tony said, shaking his head. “He told me once... showed me a journal, it's probably still somewhere in his house. He had all these designs that Antonio y Karbonel created, that he apparently discussed with Pedro back when he was still a young man in Dapitan. And I remember being thirteen, looking through that journal, and seeing this little drawing. I remember it, clear as day. My thirteen year old mind was going crazy at the sheer scandal of it. Two men kissing passionately on the veranda of a house while a younger kid on the roof had his hands on his cheeks looking scandalized, but not like, in a bad way. Like in a Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone way, kind of funny, really. It was a crappy little doodle, not drawn by an artist, but it's one of my favorite things in this world. A teeny blond holding onto a swooning brunette with a facial hair combo you couldn't mistake, and my great granddad with his historic agility and penchant for getting up high places like a teen seeing his parents kiss for the first time.”

“Have you ever shown it to anybody else?” Steve asked, still floored by the revelation.

“I don't have it,” Tony sighed. “It's probably somewhere in Lolo's house, he passed away a couple of years back and we never got around to sorting through his stuff.”

Steve bumped him with one shoulder, smiling encouragingly. “Think of how many conservative and ostensibly Catholic old historians you'll offend with the truth of the two greatest heroes in this country being lovers.”

“Oh well when you put it like that,” Tony said, leaning into Steve's warmth. “How do you think they'd feel about where we've gotten to? I feel like they'd be disappointed. Our history's just a series of mistakes we keep repeating.”

Steve pondered the question a moment before throwing an arm around Tony's shoulders, answering carefully, “I think they'd be happy. Even if it's not all they hoped, we've still moved a heck of a lot forward. And look at us now, even with assholes trying to make the same fatal mistakes over and over for the sake of men and women who'd happily see their countrymen burn, there are kids and adults taking to social media and the streets fighting tooth and nail to make sure it doesn't happen.”

He looked up at the picture of the light-haired, serious faced Esteban Rogero, whose eyes seemed haunted even at the victory of Manila, perhaps haunted by the loss of a loved one.

“We may not be symbols of heroism like them, but we're people who haven't stopped fighting. And I think they'd be proud of that.”

 

* * *

 

 

__Teban lay with Tonyo that night, holding him till morning._ _

_“ _When I first saw your portrait,” Teban whispered, “I thought, here is a man who can never sit still. Who is always moving. Ever forward.” His voice broke on the last word, and he held Tonyo tighter.__

_“ _I wish I could have run away with you,” Tonyo murmured into his neck.__

__Teban laughed wetly. “No, you don't.”_ _

_“ _I don't,” Tonyo sighed. “And I do. As Antonio y Karbonel, as the Iron Heart, I regret nothing of the sacrifices I must make for change. But as Tonyo, your Tonyo, I wish we had the world.”__

__Teban kissed him, softly, willing his heart not to break._ _

_“ _Perhaps in another life,” he whispered.__

 

__Teban watched in the crowd as Tonyo stood, guns raised all in a row to his back._ _

__He was the last thing Tonyo saw before he heard the order to fire, and the last of his energy used to twist as he fell._ _

__For he would not die with his face to the ground, but looking up at the sky._ _

 

 

__.fin._ _

* * *

* * *

 

 

 

 

_1Bulilit = tiny, dwarfish, puny_

_2Patpat = stick_

_3Juan Bautista = John the Baptist; heavy Catholic influence meant children were often named biblically_

_4Dalaga – unmarried young woman_

_5Insulares = White Spaniard born in the Philippines; island born pure Spaniard_

_6Indio = Term (often derogatorily) used to describe Filipinos._

_7Peninsulares = White Spaniard born in Spain_

_8Barangay = Like a barrio, village—small community_

_9French used to be the European language considered the 'international language', considered the language of the educated, though it was quickly replaced by English in later years as an international language_

_10Guardia Civil = the police / authorities at the time, "the civil guard"_

_11Brujo is the male form of Bruja, which means witch, a nod to Bruce Banner's hot temper as bruja/brujo was used in the Filipino context as somebody who was bratty, spoiled, or in other contexts, bad-tempered. Also the name is very close to "Bruce"_

_12Kalasag = meaning "shield" because I only pretend to be creative when I'm actually not. At all._

_13Negrito refers to dark skinned mountain dwelling indigenous groups in the Philippines., mostly the short, nomadic hunter-gatherers, the Aeta, though it was an umbrella term in the Spanish era and still somewhat used today_

_14Ilustrado = The educated middle class of Filipinos_

_15Barong Tagalog = a translucent formal dress shirt worn by lower class Filipinos, supposedly used to prevent concealment of weapons_

_16Amo = master or employer, as with a servant_

_17Gob. Hen = Gobernador Heneral or Governor General, the highest leadership position in the country at the time—always Spanish, never Filipino_

_18Mahal = literally love, used here as an endearment,"my love"_

_19Dalagita = diminuitive of dalaga, a young teenage girl_

_20Kastila = used to refer to upper class Spaniards in the Philippines, taken from the word "Castillan"_

_21Itay, Inay = Father, Mother (alt. Tatay, Nanay)_

_22Despidida = send-off / farewell party_

_23Kariton = cart_

_24Sundalong patpat = stick-thin soldier, referencing an existing poem by the same name_

_25Bernardo Carpio = a philippine mythological figure, a strong man who is trapped between two stones and always pushing against them_

 

 


	2. Details regarding characters and historical events in the story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because this felt too long to be put in an end note :))

**Why did I write this fic?**

It started with me remembering that Andres Bonifacio, one of our greatest heroes and widely regarded as our "other" national hero, grew up doing artistic work for his mother, and it reminded me of artist Steve. Jose Rizal, the actual official national hero and contemporary of Bonifacio, was a genius, polymath, playboy and nationalist who worked hard for the cause, and it was a lot easier to connect him to Tony. He also dabbled in philanthrophy when he improved the livelihoods of people in **Dapitan,** where he was exiled. 

 

**Antonio Eduardo y Karbonel**

I wanted to make his name longer. Jose Rizal's full name was José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda. It was actually his mother who was falsely accused and arrested by the Spanish Civil Guard. He had many siblings, 9 sisters and 1 brother, and I wanted to add other Marvel characters as Tonyo's siblings, but couldn't fit them into the story (sadly). 

 **Yes,** he DID write a revolutionary book that put him on the Spanish authorities' shitlist,  **yes** he did study abroad and  **yes** he did help write some reformist works. He was also a playboy, with many recorded lovers. I chose the letter writing aspect of the love story because 1) he wrote some spectacular love letters to a cousin of his (it was... romantic at the time) and 2) he also kept correspondence with a man named Ferdinand Blumentritt, with whom he had a somewhat homoromantic correspondence with, including Blumentritt permanently nicknaming one of his kids after what Rizal called her.  

 **No,** he did not correspond regularly with Andres Bonifacio. They only met in person very few times (once recorded as they were both members of La Solidaridad, but presumably there were subsequent meetings), but Bonifacio was, for all intents and purposes, a Rizal fanboy, and took inspiration from his works in most if not all his revolutionary acts, while Rizal respected and admired Bonifacio's work as leader despite disagreeing with him on the effectiveness of a revolution  

You can read a bit more about them not meeting here https://www.ue.edu.ph/manila/uetoday/index.php?nav=uetoday10.htm&archive=200606

And more about the general state of their "relationship" IRL here http://ourhappyschool.com/ap-social-studies/collaboration-between-jose-rizal-and-andres-bonifacio

 **Yes,** Rizal was exiled to Dapitan, and  **yes** he helped improve the state of things there. 

 **Yes,** he was eventually executed by firing squad. 

 

 

**Esteban Granada Rogero**

Rogero in this case is pronounced "Roh-heh-roh". Teban's character is based on the middle class revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio. I called Teban "Captain" as a nod to Bonifacio's role as "Supremo" and leader of the revolution. He formed the KKK, or the Katipunan, one of the most well known nationalist revolutionary groups in the Philippines. They were secretive, and a lot of students enjoy hearing about them, as they were probably one of the most exciting parts about learning Philippine history, from signing pacts with their own blood to women hiding their documents under their skirts and having garden parties to cover up KKK meetings. 

Our KKK is better than yours :') For obvious reasons. It stands for: Samahang Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (English: Supreme and Most Honorable Society of the Children of the Nation)

 **Yes,** Bonifacio led the revolution and many attacks.  **Yes,** he was educated in his youth and enjoyed reformist works like those by Victor Hugo. **Yes** he helped oversee shipping on the docks.  **Yes** he took inspiration from Rizal's nationalism.  **Yes** he was betrayed by someone within the ranks of the KKK, by Emilio Aguinaldo and his supporters. 

 **No,** he was not light in hair and skin color.  **No** he did not star as a character in Rizal's works, though people often draw similarities between him and a character in Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. 

_On May 10, 1897, Bonifacio and his **brother Procopio** were killed under orders from **Aguinaldo** , who issued a statement 50 years later saying he had authorized the death sentence as advised by members of the Council of War._

**Yes** he was called to a meeting by other members of the KKK with the intent to kill him. **No,** he did not survive.

 

**Alejandro Piero**

He represents Emilio Aguinaldo, another leader of the revolution, the first official President of the Philippines, who also happened to order the murder of both Andres Bonifacio and later, Heneral Antonio Luna, two prominent heroes of the nation and hand the country over to invading Americans.

We were taught in school that he was also a hero of the Philippines. His presidency kind of set the tone for Filipino governmental practices in general. 

 

**Los Vengadores**

represents the revolutionary group, the KKK, or the Katipunan

**Las Maravillas**

represents La Solidaridad, a political propaganda paper formed by ilustrados in Europe talking about reforms for the Philippines

 

**Carolina de Vera**

loosely represents Heneral Antonio Luna, one of the greater generals who fought during the Philippine-American war. There's a popular movie about him that just came out recently that y'all should watch. His brother, Juan Luna, was a close friend of Rizal. 

 

**Benigno "Brujo" Bandera**

loosely based on Juan Luna, an artist who was a good friend of Rizal. He also had a terrible temper, and was charged for killing his wife and mother-in-law. He's best known for painting one of the most famous revolutionary paintings in the Philippines, The Spoliarium

 

 

**Jaime "Bokoy" Bautista**

loosely represents Emilio Jacinto, Bonifacio's right hand man

**Margarita "Pegay" Cartera**

loosely represents Gregoria de Jesus, Bonifacio's wife: 

_Gregoria Álvarez de Jesús, also known as Aling Oriang, was the founder and vice-president of the women's chapter of the Katipunan of the Philippines. She was also the custodian of the documents and seal of the Katipunan._

Badass. 

 

**FUTURE:**

People Power Monument, 2016: 

The reincarnation bit was added very late, but I thought it'd be appropriate. In the last week, the country has struggled with the sudden and secret burial of a dictator whose family stole billions from the country in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, or the Heroes' Cemetery.

Protests still continue. 

There were, in fact, protesters who were holding up "HONK FOR JUSTICE" signs at the People Power Monument the day after the burial and first massive and spontaneous protest. 

 

 

Until now we're all still fighting the bullshit of corrupt politicians and murderers and dictators and what have you, so I thought that'd be the theme of the story. It was either that or the fact that everything is depressing and it's not gotten better the last hundred years. 

So the fight goes on! And for all the shit that's happening I'm still hella proud to share my heritage in this fic. 


End file.
